Trifling Matters
by KCS
Summary: Bits and pieces from my scribble-board, which have up to now only appeared on my LiveJournal. No set order, format, or genre.
1. Ghosts

**Title**: Ghosts  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 100 each  
**Warnings**: :(  
**Summary**: No ghosts need apply, but they do linger sometimes.  
**Author's Notes**: This idea came to me about a week ago, when I was visiting in a nursing home and suddenly rounded a corner onto a man who looked just almost exactly (freakishly so) like my favorite grandpa, who passed away three years ago. The mind is a scary thing when startled by something like that...

* * *

He was unsure what in particular caught his eye. A flash of blue, a glint of golden hair, girlish laughter, sweet attendance on the elderly woman? – but he suddenly found himself frozen on the railway platform, transfixed in confused memory as she exited the compartment. Vaguely he knew Holmes stumbled into his back, apologised, then voiced a puzzled inquiry.

Finally, numbly, he registered both that it was a cruel – mercilessly cruel – impossibility, and that he was staring quite rudely. Thankfully more flattered than annoyed at the open attention, she smiled shyly in his direction, and then vanished into the crowd.

--

"Easy, Watson – I did not mean to startle you," Holmes was saying, having relinquished his arm after he had jumped, the trance broken.

He shivered under the detective's concerned scrutiny. "Sorry, Holmes. I…thought I recognised someone," he muttered, bending to retrieve his dropped bag.

A thin hand beat him to the valise-handle. "You are as pale as paper, Watson…Did you?" Holmes asked gently, as they continued train-ward.

As the whistle blew, his whispered "Perhaps" was lost to the noise but not to Holmes, and the detective knew better than to leave the ghost-ridden compartment for the duration of the journey.


	2. Practical Gardening

**Title**: Practical Gardening  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 500  
**Warnings**: none  
**Summary**: Holmes gets a lesson in practical gardening, and Mrs. Hudson is the one to give it to him.  
**Author's Notes**: This is an answer to a request for an LJ friend, with a word limit of 500.

* * *

In retrospect, she should have known better than to leave it in the care of her new lodgers.

"You said you were going to remind me about it, Doctor!"

"I did," came the dry rejoinder. "You were too busy scratching away at that infernal instrument to listen, evidently. A man gets the feeling that he is not wanted, after a dozen or so instances of being ignored."

"I wasn't ignoring you. I was _concentrating_."

"You still cannot blame me if you forgot to water the poor thing – you were the one that promised to look after it while she was away, not I!"

"I didn't think that entailed anything other than making sure it did not get tipped over in the hall!"

A small silence. "Beg pardon?"

"You heard me perfectly well, Doctor –"

"Yes, yes, but surely you cannot be serious! Do you mean to tell me you had no idea it needed to be watered twice a day and put in the window each afternoon?"

"She told you that?"

"She didn't have to, Holmes! It's common sense for houseplant-sitting!"

"It _is_? Why are they called _house_plants then, if they require the same elements that outside plants do??"

She heard a low moan from the exasperated Doctor, and nearly laughed but for the fact that the poor fern was lying dead below, shriveled and brown. And they the hardiest of plants besides cactuses! But even that the poor plant had expired, unloved and uncared-for, could not prevent her laughing at the abject horror upon both their faces when she entered sternly.

"Erm…back early, Mrs. Hudson?" Holmes offered weakly.

Watson ducked for Holmes's bedroom door. "I'll just be getting up to my room, freshen up before luncheon…"

She heard the angry hiss. "You are a coward, Doctor!"

"Perhaps, but a smart one!" the answer floated back.

"Mr. Holmes, I am sorely disappointed in you," said she, carefully concealing a smile.

"You, my good woman, have been eavesdropping!"

"Absolutely, young man," she retorted, hands on hips. "You are going to replace that poor plant, and you _are_ going to learn to take care of it, is that clear?"

Holmes squirmed, a half-hearted protest rising and withering on his lips. "…Very well," he muttered at last. "I am sorry, Mrs. Hudson."

"So you should be. And here I thought the Doctor was exaggerating when he said you had no knowledge of practical gardening!"

A hastily-stifled peal of laughter from the top of the stairs, and the detective's subsequent growling as he pounded up them to punish his friend, stopped any further chastising she might have given. She shook her head, tried to ignore the loud thud and yelp upstairs that set the hall mirror rattling, and set the fern out for the dust-man.

And when, months later, she was gifted a lovely aspidistra, Mr. Holmes's responsibility became to care for it, under her stern supervision. Who knew that the detective would eventually become so enamored with the thing as to be incensed when she removed it?


	3. Preoccupied

**Title**: Preoccupied  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 500  
**Warnings**: none  
**Summary**: Answer to a request from an LJ friend: Foggy nights, Holmes and Watson, fluff. In 500 words or less.  
**Author's Notes**: N/A.

* * *

I huddled closer into my overcoat and concentrated upon inhaling as little of the oily fog as possible, for conversation with my morose companion was obviously out of the question. A case gone badly, an escaped villain, had climaxed an already strenuous day, and my poor friend was of course blaming himself for each mishap.

While chasing the nobleman through the labyrinthine West End, I had taken a nasty spill on the cobblestones, unable to see my footing properly in the choking miasma. As a result, I was now having difficulty keeping pace with my friend's angry stride and eventually found myself falling slightly behind him. I did not realise how thick the fog truly was until I suddenly perceived that his gaunt silhouette had become one with the mists. I was left alone.

I have noticed that a fog-wrapped world dissolves into a distorted, watery blur, and its voice becomes an accentuation of sounds that only a blind man would notice regularly. A cab, trotting past scant inches to my left, unseen and ghostly; a street-lamp, only a glowing sphere floating suspended over my head; distant laughter from a closing pub, floating away on wisps of fog; shadowy wraiths of passers-by that materialized out of the gloom and then melted away just as quickly, before I could determine if they were real or imagined.

And it was no aid to my nerve that Sherlock Holmes had often commented quite cheerfully on how a clever thief or murderer could roam the fog-bound streets like a tiger, unseen until he pounced upon his victim.

Holmes himself would probably not notice I had lagged behind until he asked me for my latch-key, and I could hear no approaching vehicles. (I was thankful that our chase had been in this part of town, rather than Whitechapel for instance, were I forced to walk alone.)

However, just at present, my leg was aching too sharply to continue. Out of the swirling haze a low stone wall enclosing a town-house emerged unexpectedly, and I collapsed upon it to catch my breath (and, I admit, steel my nerve) for the trek home.

I had not rested long before light footsteps heralded someone's approach through the mist, and moments later a fog-shadow materialized before me – nearly stumbling over my feet, in fact.

I blinked in astonishment – _glad_ astonishment. "Holmes?"

"Do not disappear on me like that again," he scolded, folding his arms in a quite first-rate approximation of a ten-year-old pout. "I was at the corner before I realised you were no longer with me. Next time, _say_ something, Watson."

"You were quite preoccupied," I protested. "I did not want to – "

He silenced me with an outstretched hand which I accepted, permitting him to pull me back to my feet. He then slid my hand back to grip his arm.

"I should hope I would never be _that_ preoccupied, Watson."

And we continued, much more leisurely, until we were enveloped once again by the billowing fog.


	4. Keeper of the Light

**Title**: Keeper of the Light  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 2741  
**Warnings**: mentions of minor off-screen character death, general sadness  
**Summary**: My entry into the LiveJournal community Watsons_Woes, Challenge 002. We had to, in some form or fashion, use the line "I am lost without my Boswell" in a oneshot that also indicated loss in general, of some sort.  
**Author's Notes**: N/A

* * *

The darkness from the rainy night pressed inward upon the room, choking me with unseen dread regarding the news I bore.

"I am truly sorry," I said sadly, wishing even as the words automatically left my mouth that they would be more than empty, useless platitudes. "There was nothing more I could do."

"_What_?" Our client had leapt to his feet to face me, his fresh young face now hollow with the sickness that only grief can generate. "You – you told me that she would be all right, that you would see to her!"

I winced, noting from my peripheral that Holmes had got to his feet, watching the distrait young man warily. Indeed I _had_ spoken as he stated, for there had been no time for ought else; after the young woman had been surprised and consequently struck down by our unexpectedly audacious – and treacherous – opponent, Holmes had dashed after the villain, ordering the young fellow to accompany him and me to care for the injured young lady. What else was I supposed to say to the man besides the obligatory "Go on, and I shall take care of her, I promise."?

"I cannot stay the courses of nature, lad," I spoke quietly, trying to quiet the budding dread that threatened to sap the young man of all his vitality, and his composure as well. I felt my eyes sting as I continued. "There was nothing else I could do – and believe me, I would have given anything in the world to have been able to help her."

"And – and the baby?" the young fellow whispered with a deathly calm that sent a warning speeding through my mind, though I had no time to pay heed to it.

I shook my head, blinking once to clear my vision. "I am truly sorry; it was already too late by the time I – "

I stepped back on the instant as I saw another warning flare of seething rage. Holmes and the young fellow had apprehended the man responsible for surprising the lady, and the criminal was now in custody of Scotland Yard. But the victory was a hollow one, having come at a terrible price, and I did not blame our client for what he was feeling.

Indeed, I knew all too well just exactly _what_ he was feeling, and this man was young, a mere child really – far too young to be forced to endure such a grief.

"It wasn't too late! You told me you would take care of her – she was still alive when I left!" the fellow cried furiously, each accusatory word twisting my heart even more.

"Carter, that's enough," Holmes cautioned.

"No! You could have done _something_!" our client fairly shouted at me now in his growing emotional state. "You are a _doctor_, for heaven's sake! What kind of a physician _are_ you?!"

Perhaps it was my own sense of loss and grief, or just exhaustion from the long, grueling case and even longer hours of the night, that blinded me to the extent of Carter's distraught condition – but whatever the cause, I was completely unprepared to again blink to clear my eyesight after this verbal onslaught, only to see my view obscured by a well-aimed fist, aimed straight at my face and made the more direct by the blind rage that fueled it.

I had no time to dodge or block the blow, so shocked was I, and took the force of impact square to the mouth and jaw. I stumbled backward against the wall, seeing stars for a moment, but did not lose consciousness for the young man was hardly capable of throwing so powerful a punch. After the momentary tingling in my ears had subsided, I became vaguely aware that blood was seeping at the corner of my lips and hazily heard my name shouted from somewhere to my left.

Then young but strong hands were grasping me by the shoulders, my left of which already ached abominably from the inclement weather, and were shaking me quite forcefully; a voice shouted invectives that I was still too stunned to understand properly, until suddenly my vision cleared just as the grip was torn away.

Holmes yanked our emotionally distressed client from me, his face a picture of disgust and loathing at the outburst, and drew back his fist to strike some sense into the barely struggling, near-hysterical young man.

For a moment I coughed hoarsely. "Holmes, don't!" I finally gasped, only just in time to prevent our client from being knocked senseless by a quite angry consulting detective.

My friend's eyes glinted back at me dangerously, though they softened as I staggered back to balance my equilibrium, rubbing a hand over my mouth to wipe away the trickle of blood. His fist remained poised, even as our client broke down into deep, shuddering sobs that nearly shook him free of Holmes's iron grip.

"Don't," I repeated with more firmness, walking slowly over and laying a hand upon the rigid muscles of his arm, gently tugging our weeping client free from his tense grip. "It's all right, old chap. I should know."

I was speaking to Holmes, not to our client, but apparently the young man took it as reassurance all the same, for his legs practically folded underneath him and he fell, weeping bitterly, against me. Holmes's wide-eyed stare followed me as I knelt with the young fellow and patted the his back gently, allowing the emotions to run their course (though in a much less physical manner than they had been five minutes before, thankfully for my state of health).

Finally our client gave a hiccoughing sob and suddenly jerked free of my grip, as if he had been burned by the contact. "Dr. Watson, I – I am s-so sorry," he gasped brokenly, more stammering than speaking in his incoherent grief. "I – I have n-no idea what came over me…"

"I do," I replied simply, extending a hand to help the man to his feet. "Put it from your mind now, lad."

The young fellow coughed into the handkerchief I pulled from my sleeve to offer to him, whispering a shamed word of thanks and hiding his face in it for a moment.

For the next thirty seconds, I was acutely aware of the relentless ticking of the clock upon the stately mantel; indicative that Time is and always has been the one force no man is capable of besting despite all our wishes and prayers. Finally Carter choked back a lingering sob and rubbed his eyes.

"May I see her?" he whispered in a voice more dull and still than the room beyond had been when I had left it a few minute before.

My heart clenched painfully in my chest, and I could find no words of comfort or even agreement, allowing a sad nod to suffice for answer. The young man nodded back, and then dejectedly turned to enter the bedroom, his shoulders slumped as if carrying the weight of the entire world – and rightfully so, for it had just come crashing down around him in irretrievably shattered fragments.

I watched until the door had closed softly behind him, and then let my own shoulders slump in weariness. From behind me I heard tentative footsteps, ones that stopped at a safe distance from me.

"You are a more forgiving man than I, Doctor." The voice was calm, collected – by no means emotional, and by no stretch even comprehending.

"No, I am not," I sighed, marveling at the hollow blankness of my tone. "I…just know what drives a man to that extreme, that is all."

I heard a swift inhalation behind me – he had taken a sudden breath through his nose – but did not linger to discover if my small deduction was correct, for I felt that I was rather close to fraying the thread that held my composure in check at the moment, struggling to contain and restrain Memory and all her treacherous devices, designed to break a man's will and sanity if he were not strong enough to prevent the eventuality.

I walked over to the window and stood, watching the rain beat down upon the small bit of mud-spattered grass below that was still visible in the moonlight. The fat drops landed in steady succession upon the glass and slid down to the sill, as if the entire world were weeping for the injustice of it all. Behind me in the glass's fantasy-mirror I could see the cheerful fire, dwindling down into a subdued glow that was barely warmer than the gas-lamps.

A thin shadow moved between the latter's reflection and the window-pane, just as a particularly large drop thumped an inch from where my forehead rested against the chilled glass.

I hoped that Holmes would think that the rain-streams on the pane were merely being reflected on my face; all he needed at the _denouement_ of a case was for me to be less than cheerful, and to fail in staving off his ennui as long as was humanly possible.

But simultaneously I felt a strong hand upon my shoulder and something soft and smelling of rather strong tobacco and chemicals slipped into my clenched hand. Through clouded eyes I perceived it was his handkerchief, clean despite the peculiar odours indicative of all his clothing, and I blinked once before raising my head.

"Your mouth is still bleeding," he explained, though I knew that was not the only reason for his proffering it to me. "How badly did he hurt you?"

"Not badly," I replied hoarsely, dabbing at the corner of my mouth and then, surreptitiously, at my eyes. "He's too young, and was too distracted, to do much harm."

"Harm enough," Holmes whispered with a gentleness that made me pause and wonder how much he truly knew, while his hand tightened upon my shoulder as if trying by his formidable strength alone to quell my quivering.

I sighed, allowing my rigid posture to slump under his understanding grip. "He's going to need to be watched, I think, Holmes," I ventured quietly. "With a reaction that profound, he needs to not be left alone."

"Like you were."

The breath completely fled my lungs at the unexpected, but accurate, addendum to my statement, offered in a tone of deep-seated, miserable regret that I had never before heard from his lips, even in fifteen years of association.

"I…" I gasped slightly for a breath, my head spinning slightly, and heard a murmured apology.

"I am sorry, Watson; that was thoughtless of me." I swallowed and closed my eyes, waiting for my voice and senses to return, as he continued. "I shall see to it, my dear fellow; you have done enough for one night."

I nodded wordlessly, not trusting my verbal reactions just yet.

"Then I would like for you to return to Baker Street, and get some warm and dry clothing," he continued, for my attire was still damp from our run across the lawn earlier, when we had seen our quarry breaking into the house unexpectedly. "I shall wait for Lestrade to come back, and then meet you there."

"Very well," I answered mechanically, again holding the handkerchief to my mouth and hoping my hand was steadier than I felt. "Mind you allow Carter to release those emotions, Holmes – believe me, he truly needs to."

"I shall, but I should prefer you not be the target of his anger for future demonstrations."

"Anger must have a target, to truly be released," I alleged bitterly. "And it is better to target a sympathetic person than to turn the rage and desire to inflict harm back upon one's self. He must blame someone, and it is better that person be I than for him to place the blame upon himself."

I had gotten my gloves on and was slowly donning my coat, when Holmes's voice froze me into a rigid position with one arm half-way through the damp sleeve.

"Are you speaking from experience, Watson?" The inquiry was soft and gentle, but brooked no possibility of evasion.

I slowly, very slowly, finished putting on the coat and painstakingly flipped the lapels right-side out before turning to pick the symbol of my failure for the night – my medical bag – and look at him. He was standing by the rain-wept window still, one elbow in the palm of his other hand and a finger pressed against his thin lips in a familiar gesture that I knew signified worry, not nerves.

"Yes, I am," I answered quietly, and left the room amid his sad silence, the softness of his damp handkerchief still clutched in the palm of my glove.

--

Well after midnight, amid a crashing thunderstorm that blacked out nearly all of the city, Sherlock Holmes finally returned to Baker Street, drenched and unhappy in mind and spirit. Rarely had he felt so unutterably disconsolate, so helpless, as he had this night. Yes, the case had been concluded and the villain captured – but at what a cost! Failure would have been preferable to causing such pain for success.

He could already feel the dreaded lethargy creeping over him like a shadow ruthlessly growing in the setting sun, as he shed his dripping coat and climbed the steps. He entered the sitting room with the expectation that Watson would have had the sense to get warm and dry, perhaps have a pot of Mrs. Hudson's excellent tea, and be curled up by the fire to await his return to discuss the case.

He was mildly surprised, and more than mildly troubled, to find that the sitting room was empty, the fire nearly dead, and the whole house silent and dark as a cemetery just after a funeral.

The comparison resurrected the night's events in ghostly vividness; the case, the client, the tragedy recent and the tragedy not as recent.

He had once, in a fit of jovial sentimentality, said that _he was lost without his Boswell_, and in fact had forgotten the foolish statement until he had read it with great amusement in the _Strand_ magazine while in France a few years before. However maudlin the sentiment, it was nevertheless true; Watson was his ship's lighthouse, the steady beacon that prevented his mind from dashing itself to pieces on the rocks of boredom and preserving his sanity from being drowned in a sea of never-ending turmoil, a maelstrom of uncertainty and emotion that he would never fully comprehend.

What he had not known then, and what he knew now, was that his Boswell had lost _everything_ – wife, child, friend, health, work, even his desire to write – and yet had not broken under the strain, then or now. Tonight he had used that void to comfort another fellow man, to guide another ship past the shoals of grief and despair.

But even the strongest and most balanced of men sometimes needed a reminder that they were not alone; a keeper was necessary for the lighthouse, so to speak, to see that the lamp stayed lit.

He frowned sadly at this glaring realisation, slowly donned his dressing-gown and slippers, and then ascended his way, silently as a stalking cat, to the upper bedroom.

The door was ajar, the gas a faint glow, and Watson apparently asleep.

He entered, just to make certain, and perceived in a rapid string of forlorn deductions the events following his friend's return to the house. A small packet of letters, tied with a blue ribbon – Watson's wife's favorite colour, he remembered – lay beside an open journal, which he of course refrained from looking at and quickly closed to stave off the temptation to do so. He reverently moved the photograph away from the half-full cup of cold tea on the desk, to prevent any careless spillage, and then extinguished the guttering candle.

Then he stood for a sad moment, wishing that he had been able to do something to comfort his only friend's grief and loneliness – but he had never been good at soothing grief, or at comforting loneliness, and probably never would be. How could he see that another man's light did not go out, when he fought a consistent and constant battle himself against the darkness?

It was not until he worked the twisted blanket out from under Watson's unconscious arm that he realised his friend was still clutching his handkerchief in the hand curled under his head.

Then again, it only took one small spark to light a flame. Perhaps that could be enough.


	5. Trust

**Title**: A Matter of Trust  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 500  
**Warnings**: none  
**Summary**: My entry into the LiveJournal community Watsons_Woes, Challenge 003. Word limit of 500, with the prompt of having to use the line "Watson had got a gun."  
**Author's Notes**: N/A

* * *

Forced to take refuge behind some packing-crates, I was peeking over the top of one when a shot whined too close for comfort, splintering the wood between us.

As we promptly dived either direction, I realised the shot had come from behind – someone – several – had sneaked up in the chaos and were currently popping a series of bullets my direction.

I was not even aware that Watson had got a gun before we left Baker Street; but, rolling to one elbow, I watched in bewilderment as he aimed and shot three of the four men. Not killing, but aiming for their legs, dead-center each time, in such rapid succession it seemed only one elongated explosion.

I knew the man was a trained soldier…but this!

"Drop it," he barked toward the fourth, who was hesitating. "I'm a doctor; I do not take lives, but I know exactly where the most pain can be inflicted without causing death."

The man wisely chose to drop the pistol and back away, exclaiming that he "was sure not goin' to try anythin'!"

I scrambled up as Watson rose stiffly from his kneeling position, keeping the unwavering weapon trained upon our smugglers. Behind us the melee began to calm.

"Well," my ever-astonishing companion sighed, lowering the revolver and looking back at Lestrade's men. "That was exciting."

I suddenly realised just how much I had to learn about this man; the chilled iron in his voice moments ago would disintegrate my own steely tones into oblivion. I have heard few things that are truly frightening, and that tops the list.

These thoughts are retrospectal, however, for just then I had only time to see the gleam of lantern-light upon steel before shouting and throwing us both aside. A large sailor's knife thudded into the crate where Watson had been standing. I heard Lestrade's bellowing, and knew the Inspector had succeeded in apprehending the smuggler.

My immediate concern was ensuring that the crack my friend had taken to the head upon striking the floor was not of a serious nature; he had been stunned enough to drop the revolver, and was only blinking dazedly at me as I bent over him.

"No…no, I'm all right, Holmes," he grunted in response to my worried query as I helped him sit up with my steadying arm behind his back. "What the devil were you doing, though?"

I indicated the knife that the 'surrendered' smuggler had flung, and his eyes widened.

"This business allows no room for trust, Doctor," I rebuked gravely, for he could have been badly hurt.

His slightly-dazed eyes filled with a peculiar curiousity. "Do you trust no one, Holmes?"

I inclined an eyebrow at the three groaning smugglers Lestrade's men were hauling away. "It appears that I do now. At least I must, else I should be frightened to live with a man who is capable of _that_," I replied, quite seriously.

I have absolutely no inkling what in that honest sentiment he found quite so hilarious.


	6. Crisis

**Title**: Crisis  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: very early Holmes, Watson, Lestrade  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 1195  
**Warnings**: my first attempt at early Lestrade POV. My first long Holmes fic in almost three weeks, written last Friday, so very rusty.  
**Summary**: Possible future scene from _Agreement and Disputation_. The climax of what was an ordinary case until this moment, seen through the eyes of Inspector Lestrade. Drabble meme answer for another LJ friend.  
**Author's Notes**: I'm open to other suggestions for a title if anyone has a better one.

* * *

How the deuce the evening went from an easy collar (almost ridiculously easy) to such a close shave, I've no idea.

Cornered, our man deemed it smart to drop his weapon when I put a bullet through his arm in time to prevent his blowing out the brains of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, supposedly the sole consulting detective for Greater London, also known as unendurably egotistical upstart. Typical of the man, he never noticed that his skull near became a permanent splash upon the wallpaper, what with his rushing Merridew so recklessly as he did.

The Doctor at least had the grace to thank me for saving the young idiot's life. Watson never apologizes for his peculiar flat-mate's manners (rather, the lack thereof), I've noticed; the man is either oblivious to the insolence (which I doubt) or sincerely loyal to his friend (which I have no idea why), but just bridges the yawning gaps left by Mr. Holmes's preoccupation with the case and the case alone. .

In addition to the most patient saint I have yet to meet (none of us are yet convinced he's actually human, for any sane and normal man would have long since murdered Mr. Holmes while he slept or whatever-it-is the man does of nights), the Doctor is just that, physician to his compasionate core. And so when he'd done with me he snatched some clean cloths from a nearby cupboard and moved to tend the scoundrel I'd plugged, kneeling beside the brute and beginning to inspect the neat flesh wound in the upper arm. Mr. Holmes began droning in my ear about deductions and charges and logical conclusions and are you listening to me Inspector because it does not appear that way to my admirably balanced and nauseatingly smug mind, etc., etc.

Steel shone behind him.

Before I could more than shout Merridew and the Doctor were both on their feet with the Doctor in-between, the scoundrel smirking over the Doctor's good shoulder and a knife at the physician's throat. The man's bad arm was twisted behind his back hard enough to drain the blood from his face, and to look at Mr. Holmes you'd think someone was doing the same to him because he was whiter than a starched collar on a Sunday morn.

"He had it in his sleeve," the Doctor muttered, shooting Holmes an apologetic look that struck me as absolutely ridiculous under the circumstances; it is not the duty of a civilian, and a healer, to expect the worst of men like Merridew. The knife tightened in warning against the Doctor's larynx, and he fell quiet, watching more calmly than any man should when he's one inch away from having his throat punctured and slit.

As something apparently had this self-professedly unruffled amateur by the throat, it fell to me to reason with the madman. "Don't be a fool, Merridew," I warned. "You heard the commotion outside; your two guards are already in the wagons and we're only waiting on you. You won't get far."

"We'll see about that, Inspector, now won't we?" the man hissed, giving the Doctor's arm another wrench as he took a step backward, toward the door.

To his credit, the Doctor uttered not a sound, though his face went from white to ashen and his eyes closed for a moment.

"If you've a plan in that sizable brain of yours, I'm more than willing to follow it," I muttered in an undertone to Mr. Holmes.

His eyes, wider and darker than I'd ever seen, hadn't left the Doctor's face, and now their gazes locked tightly, like a magnetic current was both connecting and communicating.

"Mr. Holmes?"

He swallowed, long and hard, and opened his mouth; but evidently another of those fantastic qualities the Doctor possesses in apparent abundance is the ability to read our mutual colleague's indecipherable mind; because I've never seen such a glare – and this was directed at a friend, not an enemy! – on anyone but an axe-murderer.

Watson got as far as "Don't you dare let –" before the knife at his throat cut him off with a half-breathed choke. Merridew had barely nicked the skin, I was relieved to see, but pressing so tightly against the windpipe obviously made breathing difficult for the physician. I felt a bead of perspiration trickle down into my collar, but didn't dare move just at present.

Holmes turned the color of four-day-old January street slush, and shifted his weight forward, tense and coiled as a Swiss clockwork spring. "Merridew," he barked finally, though if he believed he was hiding the razor-edge of panic in his voice he had another thought coming. "Let him go, and I shall personally see to it you walk out of here unhindered."

"Now look here, Mr. Holmes," I squawked before I realized how heartless it sounded. But the young fellow may play whatever tricks with the law he likes and have no repercussions; The rest of us mortals have _no_ elder brother in high places and as such could very likely regret a bad decision for the rest of our miserable lives (and maybe past that, if the powers that be had their way).

"I think I can manage that on my own, Mr. Holmes," Merridew replied coolly enough, and edged toward the door, dragging the Doctor with him. At least the man had the sense not to struggle or indulge in any foolish heroics with the knife-point nicking his skin like that. "Shall I waste all our times demonstrating what could happen if you attempt to stop me? No? I thought not. Yes, that's better, Inspector."

Beaten, I had lowered my revolver – Holmes would kill me too, if I even thought about trying to somehow keep the man in the room and something happened to the Doctor because of it. With any luck, my men would have had the sense to keep watch on the house. We were helpless, for now, and from the look on his face Mr. Holmes appeared incapable of stringing a logical thought in sequence with another at the moment..

The Doctor flicked a helpless glance toward me, an unspoken offer to resist quite obvious in those proud eyes, but I shook my head at last. I'll never willingly see an innocent man – and a _good_ man, which is even rarer than an innocent – die on my watch, thank you very much. They'd reached the door by this time, and Merridew gave the Doctor's arm another twist, ordering him to turn the knob with his free hand.

Ten seconds later, it had been kicked shut behind them, and silence choked the room.

Five seconds later, Mr. Holmes started breathing again (I'd been afraid he'd forgotten and was not anticipating having to jolt some sense into him), and we stared at each other. For once, he'd nothing smart to say, and I'd no idea how long to wait before going after Merridew. Hostage situations are always so devilishly tricky.

Then we heard the commotion and an explosion outside the door, and I jumped for it split-instants before my amateur counterpart did (possibly the first time I've actually been _ahead_ of the intolerable twit the entire three years I've had the dubious privilege of knowing him).

"Hawkins, what the _devil_ is going on!" I bellowed as soon as I'd air enough, and the flock of constables paused and looked sheep-eyed my direction. Then I saw Merridew, smack in the middle. Propped against the wall and clutching at his bleeding shoulder, he finally keeled over into a barely-breathing (more's the pity) lump on the muddy ground.

Mr. Holmes had my arm in a grip so tight I couldn't flex my fingers. "Where is Watson?"

"I'm right here, old fellow," came the Doctor's weary voice from our left, just out of the circle of light.

Mr. Holmes wrenched a lantern from the closest constable's surprised grip and stalked the eight metres to where the Doctor stood leaning against the wall, one hand on a handkerchief pressed to his throat and the other holding a revolver trained upon the unconscious Merridew. This last he replaced in his pocket, seeing we'd the situation under control.

"We didn' even see it 'appen, Inspector Lestrade," one of the constables was burbling somewhere over my head as I bent down. "Just a scuffle, and when we 'eard the shot we came a-runnin' and found 'em both like this…"

How the devil the Doctor had got free of the man and escaped relatively unscathed – this fellow had butchered an entire family, probably with that same knife – would have been a wonder to behold and a jolly good story to hear, but apparently I'd have to be content with the little I could eavesdrop upon, coming from the confrontation behind me.

I glanced back as I stood from checking Merridew's pulse; he would live to hang, one sunny spot in an appalling evening. Mr. Holmes had dropped the lantern into the mud and had both hands on the Doctor's shoulders, his overly long nose only inches from the Doctor's pale face, and either he was shaking Watson to make his point or else his hands were just shaking, period. Or both.

"No, Holmes," the Doctor was assuring patiently. "He let me go as soon as he shut the door. He just panicked when he saw the constables."

"And?" Holmes demanded.

"And I was not about to play the hostage twice," the Doctor retorted.

Even in the dark, I could see Holmes's throat clenching as he swallowed. Long, thin fingers hovered nervously at the Doctor's throat, as if unsure whether or not to land on the small trickle of blood being stayed there by the man's handkerchief. "But that knife –"

"Is nothing compared to the _khukri_ I faced more than once in the East," the veteran answered quietly. His free hand came up to capture Mr. Holmes's twitchy one (nearly dwarfing it, interestingly enough) and bring it back down, gripping it firmly. "I am perfectly all right, as you can see, my dear fellow. You worry unnecessarily."

"_I_ shall be the judge of what is necessary and what is not, thank you," Mr. Holmes snapped, but instead of being offended the Doctor only offered him some strange, half-bloomed smile that only the two of them truly understood. Lord knows I didn't, because I'd have swatted the man over the head with the nearest tree branch if he'd been so brusque with me, despite that Far Eastern self-defensive mumbo-jumbo he prides himself upon.

"As you like, Holmes," was the only answer, delivered with a wry quirk of a smile and a very gentle prying off of the detective's other hand, which was still clamped upon the Doctor's frock-coat tight enough to warp the shoulder-seam permanently.

Not the answer I'd have given, but apparently the Doctor's quiet, almost daringly so, rejoinder managed to diffuse whatever tension had been keeping Mr. Holmes taut as an over-wound E string until just that instant, because suddenly the man relaxed, and bowed his head over their hands for a long minute.

If I didn't know young Mr. I-hate-companionship-in-all-its-forms-because-none-can-compare-with-my-brilliance better, I'd swear on the Good Book that he actually is _fond_ of this chap he's somehow inveigled into sharing a flat with him.

And seeing as I've already lost one wager at the Yard (namely, that Holmes would either drive the Doctor _out_, or drive him _mad_, within six months) regarding this odd partnership-apparent, I shall reserve further judgment on the matter until the poor medico sees what a hideous crank Mr. Holmes can be around the holiday season.


	7. Hero

**Title**: Hero  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 413  
**Warnings**: Off-screen minor character death, AU.  
**Summary**: . Unexpected bad news regarding an old friend, scribbled down for the prompt word Hero.  
**Author's Notes**: Marked AU only because Pompey's _On Afghanistan's Plains _and _A Young British Soldier_ are a Canon in themselves and I'm prepared to swear them as such.

* * *

Rarely had Holmes seen such a rapid change of emotion, and it had never signified good news. One moment they were chatting amicably over an post-luncheon pipe, he looking over the paper and Watson absently opening a letter that the morning post had delivered from an old army friend. Next moment his friend's face had gone white as a sheet, his usually warm eyes now frozen to the paper.

After Holmes had jumped to catch his arm and push him toward the couch, he caught the letter as it fluttered out of shaking hands and then glanced over its contents. It was apparently a letter informing that a mutual acquaintance had died of a severe illness the month before…his heart thudded once and then returned to normal when he saw the name.

It was no wonder Watson looked so ill just now, sitting before him with his head in his hands; Holmes knew that for months after his return from Afghanistan he had endeavored without success to locate the orderly that had saved his life, but to no avail. Holmes had even offered to extend his own efforts when the subject had come up a year or two later, but one thing and another had simply pushed the matter from both their minds over time.

Now, six years later, it was apparently too late.

Holmes set the letter aside with a twinge of regret that he had not had the opportunity to shake the man's hand and thank him for what he had done, and then firmly pushed aside the feelings in favour of taking care of the present rather than dwelling on the past.

He knelt quietly in front of Watson, who was just starting to rub at his eyes and breathe normally, lifting his face from his hands to meet Holmes's worried expression.

"I'm so sorry, old fellow," Holmes breathed softly. "Are you going to be all right?"

Watson nodded wordlessly, massaging his forehead, his eyes already showing faint traces of resurrected ghosts. Holmes managed a small, vaguely reassuring half-smile, and then clambered to his feet to fetch his friend a cup of tea, dashing a bit of brandy into the drink.

"I owe the man everything, you know," he heard the Doctor's hoarse, dull voice from behind him.

Holmes walked behind his friend, putting one hand on his shoulder and reaching round him with the other to hand him the teacup. "So do I, my dear Watson," he whispered fervently.


	8. For Queen and Comrade, 1 of 3

**Title**: For Queen and Comrade, Part 1/3  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: (this part) Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 2213  
**Warnings**: violence, hard choices  
**Summary**: By request of PGF many months ago, to take one of her 221B drabbles (from _Peek Through a Gaslit Window_, if you want to go read it first, though the first few lines are basically verbatim) and make it into a full-blown angst story. I tried it, and shattered my writer's block when it took off in an unexpected direction. Which do you choose when your loyalties lie equally eith both?  
**Author's Notes**: Yes, this is just mostly-pointless angst.

* * *

I glanced at my watch for perhaps the fifth time, and then out at the dark landscape. Where in blazes was he? Never again would I let him burgle a house by himself, no matter how illustrious our client or how important his case.

As if in answer to my worries, I heard a sudden baying and snarling of the dogs we had tried so hard not to waken, and a figure belted from the house, across the lawn and toward the buggy, something clutched in his hand.

My heart leapt into my throat when he suddenly fell with a strangled cry. "Watson!"

This horse our idiotic contact had given us was skittish enough, if I jumped down it would probably take off without us – but I had no choice, Holmes lay unmoving on the wet grass and suddenly every light in the house went on behind him.

This was not good.

I leapt down, wrapped the reins around the nearest tree branch in hopes that that would hold the edgy animal, who was already shying and dancing about as the dogs bayed loudly, and then bolted for my friend, who was lying on his side on the lawn.

To make matters worse, the moon suddenly decided to show its face and we were lit up on the lawn in a silver glow nearly as bright as day. I skidded to a stop and dropped beside the detective, who was curled up on his side and clutching at his leg, apparently barely breathing in the shock of the pain.

I followed his leg down and then felt a sudden chill as I saw what held him in that position – a deadly steel-jawed trap, used more for trapping wild animals like bears and large mountain cats, had been sprung by him in his haste and was locked around his boot at the ankle. Our enemies had indeed been prepared for our attempts to get these all-important documents…how many more of these traps were about on the lawn??

I would kill Mycroft Holmes later for sending us on such a deadly mission in the first place.

For now, though, I had to get him out of the thing – but these traps which I had seen in the States once or twice and in the mountainous parts of Europe could not be opened except with a great amount of force, something I did not have at the moment; nor did I have the time to find something to use as leverage.

"Watson…" he gasped breathlessly, shoving the packet of all-important papers at me. "Take these…run, don't stop until you get back to my brother…"

"The devil I will," I snapped viciously, for he should have known better than to ask.

"No," he moaned helplessly, clenching his eyes shut. "You must – counting on us – fate of the Empire –"

"The Empire can go to blazes," I growled, trying and failing to even move the steel-springed jaws of the trap. "Only one man's fate concerns me at the moment, so just be quiet."

I glanced up with a chill of fear as there was a loud banging in the house – the staff and its master were up and would loose the dogs in a moment, and I had not the time to pry the thing open. There was only one alternative, and though I hated to waste precious ammunition that I would be needing shortly I had no choice.

"Don't move, Holmes," I warned. He nodded breathlessly, unable to speak further, and pulling out my revolver and covering his head with my other hand I fired at the chain that anchored the trap to the steel spike buried deeply into the ground.

It shattered instantly with a crash of links and flying bits of steel that clattered around us, and in a moment I had Holmes's arm and uninjured leg and had heaved him up and over my shoulder in the position I carried far heavier men from the battlefield those many years ago. The movement, however, must have cost him dearly for he gave a choked cry of pain smothered into the shoulder of my jacket and then went completely limp in a dead faint. Good, he would be out of pain at least for a while.

But by this time I could hear shouts behind us and commotion out back where the dogs were kept – they would be upon us within moments. I staggered as quickly as I could through the grass, taking a chance on stepping into a trap myself, and nearly yelped when I saw the glint of moonlight on steel only just in time and jumped over the thing as it snapped shut upon thin air just below my heel.

Perspiration trickled down my neck at the narrow escape but I continued on, heading for our buggy…and suddenly the moon emerged from its cloudbank and I repressed a cry of dismay, for the skittish horse had indeed been frightened by the commotion and the gunshots and was nowhere to be found.

Mycroft Holmes would _also_ hear from me about the idiocy of his agent who had acted as our stable hand.

I heard a sudden howl behind me that told me one of the dogs at least had picked up Holmes's scent from the study safe, and I bolted for the river at the corner of the estate. Just in time the moonlight shone off another of those horrible traps, and I paused momentarily, a small smile flickering over my face. Two could play at that game.

I stopped long enough to reach up and retrieve Holmes's handkerchief from his pocket, and carefully dropped it just beside the set trap before moving onward toward the stream, keeping a wary eye out for further traps. If I could make it through the water and not put Holmes down, then perhaps the dogs snarling close behind me would lose his scent since he had not touched ground.

It was less than three minutes later, just as I reached the stream, that I heard a satisfying canine yelp of pain and then silence as the killer dog found Holmes's handkerchief. I wasted no time in rejoicing that we had only three dogs after us now instead of four, and staggered with my burden toward the stream, hoping it was not frigid this time of a spring night.

Unfortunately, it was, and I could barely repress a yelp as the freezing water filled my boots and soaked my trousers up to the knee. But it was not deep, and in an instant I had darted along its length to where I was covered by the trees at the edge of the estate. I heard a howl of dismay from behind me but did not pause, hoping the dogs would stop there and not come into the stream after me; I was not sure if I could get my revolver out and still keep a good enough hold upon the motionless form of my friend.

I traveled away from the baying of the dogs, and a faint shout of rage from the man that caught up with them after I reached the relative safety of the trees, and kept going along the stream bed until it grew too deep that I was in danger of losing my footing – and of going absolutely numb before very many more minutes had passed.

Finally when I could no longer stand the cold I staggered up and out of the stream into a small area sheltered by spreading trees. There was a small gap at the top of one of the trees where it had apparently been struck by lightning, and this filtered enough moonlight into a small patch that I could see well enough when I finally collapsed, easing Holmes's limp form off my shoulders to the ground.

For a moment I lay there beside him, shivering and completely winded by my adrenaline-fueled flight, but I refused to allow myself much time to rest for we had none to spare. After a moment to catch my breath and still my shaking hands, I knelt wetly beside my unconscious friend and examined the jaws of the monstrous trap.

I had bought us a bit of time with the stream, but I well knew it would not be long before we had to flee again; we were a mile away from our agent, and that was far too long for an injured man. I had to work quickly.

I located a sturdy tree branch and shoved it into the space between the clenched trap jaws. Using a nearby small fallen tree trunk for leverage, I began to prize the trap open, slowly, praying the branch would not slip and snap back down to cause further pain. Finally it was open enough that I could grab the thing and slide it in one quick motion off Holmes's leg, flinging it into the air where it snapped like a wounded animal into nothing but the night breeze.

I realised I had been holding my breath and now let it out in a gasping series of coughs, repressing another shiver from my wet clothing. The detective's face was pale and unresponsive – shock and bloodloss, probably, and I decided not to attempt to waken him until I had examined the injury for there was no point in his being in more pain than he was already.

The jaws of the trap had caught him on the lower ankle, but thankfully had missed the Achilles tendon – had they damaged it, he would be in the same position I was for the rest of his life, having a constant limp and constant pain in that leg. Thank heaven he had escaped that fate.

The bones did not appear to be cleanly broken due to his thick boot which I was forced to slit open at the sides to pull back from the wound, but they were at least fractured for I could feel an enormous amount of swelling and tenderness all around his ankle.

Unfortunately, I had no time to make a complete diagnosis for in the distance I heard the sudden chilling howl of a dog. I was running out of time.

I had no supplies to clean the wound, and so stopping the bleeding was the most important factor at the moment. I tied my handkerchief round his lower leg to stem the blood flow, using a stick to secure a rude tourniquet, and then tightly wrapped my muffler round the broken skin, as many times as it could go – both to stop the bleeding and to give support to the injured bones. In all probability if he had to he could walk upon it, but it could cause immense further damage.

I heard a distant shout float on the wind, accompanied by a dog's eager baying. They had caught Holmes's scent, somehow. They could not have mine, since I had not been at the house, just his…

His scent! Of course!

He could make it a mile with the aid of a crutch – slowly, but it would do. I grabbed a sturdy and fairly straight tree branch and put it beside him, after tearing some strips from my inner jacket to wrap further support round his injured ankle. I took the papers he had tried to hand me and tucked them safely within his inner jacket pocket.

Then I hastily removed his overcoat and shrugged hurriedly out of mine. I placed the heavy woolen broadcloth over him like a blanket, effectively covering all of him but his head, and then struggled into his own – a bit small, but it would serve my purpose well enough. I took also his scarf and wrapped it about my own neck.

I paused for a moment over my unconscious friend, looking down sadly and wishing I could find another way – but he was right, the Empire did depend upon the recovery of those plans, and besides his brother would kill me if I let something happen to him. Also, I stood a much better chance of getting away under cover of darkness and my knowledge of evasive maneuvers than he did, injured and still unconscious.

As a final gesture I laid my revolver on the sleeve of my coat beside him, for if something went wrong he would need it to get the plans to safety. Then I checked his pulse once more, found it steady but a bit slow, and sighed regretfully.

"Take care, Holmes," I murmured, laying a hand upon his limp shoulder for a brief moment.

Then as another shout and the baying of a tracking dog shattered the cool night breeze I took off in the direction we had come, intent on my purpose and not regretting a thing.

If I did survive for some miraculous reason, he was going to murder me himself, I knew that well. And for once, I sincerely hoped I would be able to hear him berating me for again acting foolishly.

For now, though, I needed to locate a thick branch I could use as an effective club, and set up a trail that would let me maybe take out a few of them before I was myself taken down…


	9. FQaC, 2 of 3

**Title**: For Queen and Comrade, Part 2/3  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: (this part) Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 5095  
**Warnings**: violence, hard choices  
**Summary**: By request of PGF many months ago, to take one of her 221B drabbles (from _Peek Through a Gaslit Window_, if you want to go read it first, though the first few lines are basically verbatim) and make it into a full-blown angst story. I tried it, and shattered my writer's block when it took off in an unexpected direction. Which do you choose when your loyalties lie equally eith both?  
**Author's Notes**: Yes, this is just mostly-pointless angst.

* * *

It was not cold that woke me, though that was my last recollection, a numbing chill that a detached part of my brain recognised as shock setting in my body; for I was rather warm at the moment – it was pain, though not the sort that had also been part of my last recollection, being tossed roughly across my friend's back and a flash of agony setting my entire leg afire. More like a dull throbbing, persistent and insistent that I awake.

Which I did, knowing that whatever had happened I needed to be alert – heaven help me for fainting in that embarrassingly weak manner a few minutes ago. I opened my eyes to see moonlight above my head, and realised I was confined under something warm – Watson's overcoat, judging from the smell of ship's and cigar smoke that clung to it as much as my clothing reeked of shag tobacco.

But normally upon awaking from these fits of injury I always could count upon his being right there beside me, poking and prodding and checking my pulse and respiration and breathing and a hundred other things he delighted in torturing me with, supposedly with my own good health in mind. However I could see no sign of him as I blinked about.

I decided to sit up despite the throbbing of my leg, and as I did the coat slid off my shoulders and something metal clanked loudly to the forest floor. Moonlight glinted off immaculately polished steel, and I suddenly felt a chill – and not because my own overcoat was missing. Why was his revolver lying here? Obviously if I was in the woods we were not out of danger yet. What the devil…

I threw off the coat and felt a sharp flash of agony through my injured limb. Looking down and breathing deeply through my nose in an effort to manage the pain, I saw that the wound had apparently been hastily treated as well as my physician could have during the circumstances, and upon a cautious prodding by myself the blood appeared to have stopped flowing and the pain was a dull burning rather than that pulsating agony it had been earlier.

Then I made the mistake of rotating my ankle and nearly screamed, realising the bones were, though mobile, obviously not supposed to be moving in that grinding manner – fractured, in all probability, but as long as I did not attempt to walk upon them I could manage that pain with the appropriate amount of willpower.

But where the devil was the man himself? I despise being helpless and not in possession of all the facts, and I had no inkling of what had happened for the duration of my ridiculously effeminate fainting spell…the facts, then. I was without my coat, only covered in his…his revolver was lying beside me, purposely on the coat to prevent it from contact with the wet floor, so he had not been forced to drop it and run…there was a sturdy branch close by me with an intersecting limb that could function as a passable crutch…wait, what on earth was rustling in my inner pocket?

The papers.

Oh. Dear. Heaven.

He did _not_ do this.

I was going to _kill _him.

Which meant, of course, that I had to find him first. Not an easy task with only one good leg, but I would manage. Mycroft would have my skin for not getting back with the documents while I still could, but so be it.

It is far easier to attend a Cabinet meeting to apologise, than attend a funeral to do so to a man who will never hear you.

The thought nauseated me enough to spur my body into getting to a kneeling position. I struggled into Watson's coat, which hung on me (the shoulder seams were a good two inches down my arms, for heaven's sake), and lifted the revolver carefully from the forest floor. One shot had been fired, and he always fully loaded the thing. I had five bullets. Not encouraging.

I put the gun into my pocket as I felt in them for possible gloves. There were none, but my groping left hand suddenly clenched upon a familiar silver-lined writing case that he always carried with him. I did not even have to draw the item out to know what it looked like and what it said inside; and I was not about to have him never write in it again.

I snatched the sturdy, if lopsided, tree branch and valiantly struggled to my feet, only to fall instantly back down to the hard ground when I put weight upon my bad leg, due to the pain that suddenly enveloped it.

Swearing quite roundly at my own incompetence did not appear to help the situation's desperation or my pain, but it released some of the frustration I felt at my idiotic friend's selfless hero complex.

Not to be outdone by his ridiculous actions, I put one hand on the nearby tree this time and used the combination of it and my makeshift crutch to stagger to my feet again, not yet putting weight upon the leg. That was a bit better, though I was afraid the wound had started seeping blood once more for it felt as if it were on fire at the moment, burning right through the layers of wool and fabric.

No matter, I had had worse. I thought so, at least.

I hopped awkwardly round in the dark silence, trying to find another stick that could act as a second aid for my precarious balance, but only succeeded in falling flat upon my face again in the wet grass and rotting flower petals from the budding trees. Disgusting.

I finally gave up on the hopping and sort of crawled about on my knees until I was able to, after discarding a dozen unlikely candidates, locate another stick of approximately the same length and thickness as my first. It took a good ten minutes for me to regain my feet again, but I did finally manage it and stood leaning against the nearest tree whilst I caught my heaving breath.

While I did so, I attempted to discover where we were. It had been exactly 1:23 when I had entered the study, and I could not have been at that cracker-box of a safe for over a half-hour. It was now 2:15 by my watch, which meant that I had been unconscious for about twenty minutes. In that amount of time, carrying me and then leaving me after making me as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, Watson could not have gone far. I could see moonlight glinting off water over to the left, so he had retained the sense to get in the river to avoid the dogs.

That also meant he was soaking wet and probably freezing at the moment, the imbecile. However, he could not have left me very long ago, and knowing him he went straight back to where they were searching in an effort to draw the dogs off my scent, hoping I would go back to our agent with our papers.

He should know better. The Empire could be repaired with a bit of diplomacy and a lot higher income tax. Two lives – for it was two, mine was tied irrevocably to his despite any effort I had made to comprehend why or make it not be so – could not be so easily fixed.

I started slowly toward the stream, though this was evidently going to be much harder than I had anticipated with my horribly mismatched crutches. Once I forgot and put my foot aground, and nearly bit through my lip in the pain of trying to not cry out. I hoped he had not gotten far, else I would not be able to make it back to him in any semblance of being in time.

I started slowly along the riverbank, knowing he would have worked his way back toward the pursuers in the water so as to not leave a trail back to me. Tree roots began to spring up out of nowhere to trip me up, and it seemed that every ten feet I fell again, adding bruises to my already damaged frame and new curse words to my vocabulary.

After one particularly violent sprawl, my ankle twisted sharply and I stifled my scream in my sleeve as fire erupted from the area and the bandaging began to grow cold and wet. For a moment I lay there in the damp grass, trying to regain my breath and feeling as helpless as ever I had felt in any case. This was simply not right – everything had gone splendidly until out of nowhere one of the dogs got a whiff of my scent; obviously had been trained to smell me from that hat of mine that had been stolen from our rooms at the inn.

As if in grim echo to my angry, frustrated thoughts, I suddenly heard from somewhere in the woods to my right…the sound of an angry howl, a painful, drawn-out cry of one of those vicious dogs, and a man's hoarse shout.

And it was not Watson's voice.

I gritted my teeth and drove the ends of my makeshift crutches down into the wet ground, heaving myself to my knees and then back to my good foot, trying to ignore the growing nausea and dizziness that assailed my senses, threatening to make me lose my control once more and inviting me to just collapse into welcome dark senselessness.

But the weight of the revolver in my right pocket and that of the writing case in the other were far stronger pulls on my senses than the pain or the darkness, and I yanked the crutches from the mud as another shout was raised and another, different dog, suddenly gave a long baying howl indicating he had picked up the scent of my brave and immensely foolish companion who had taken my overcoat.

If he got my precious Inverness chewed up by a dog, I was going to kill him all over again. And then Mycroft too, for setting us on this case in the first place. Strange what oddities the mind conjures up when one is trying hard to not think of something horrible…

I plunged into the trees as quickly as I was capable and as was safe with such a precarious position as mine, knowing I had to be silent if I was to help at all…and hoping that Watson's overcoat would be sufficient to mask my scent. Probably all the dog could smell was the reek of my tobacco. I hoped.

I had five bullets, and there were probably two dogs left, if the one I had heard yelp a moment ago had been taken out by my brave soldier's resourcefulness.

Good, then as long as there were not three men after him we should be fine. Or so I attempted to tell myself as I went sprawling into a thorn bush in the darkness, resisting the urge to yowl when it pulled my hair in a dozen places and stuck in my exposed skin.

I could see no signs of lantern-light, as I struggled back to my feet with bits of my skin and hair stuck for time eternal on the infernal bush, but that did not mean there was none. A second whining howl from ahead of me told me I was on the correct trail, and I again began to stumble my way in the darkness through the trees, feeling with the ends of the sticks I held for things I would trip on.

Then suddenly through the brush I saw the flicker of a light in the distance, bobbing close to the ground so as to be hidden from view, and heard a whine of a dog being silenced by someone. They were indeed tracking him, and being more silent about it now, which meant I was forced to slow my own pace accordingly in order to not misstep and draw attention to myself. I remained thankfully downwind of the breeze, shifting as it did so as to not be scented, and hobbled after the sound of distant brush breaking as fast as I could with the increasing blinding pain of my leg.

My stomach was threatening to take over my body at this point, both from nausea of the pain and blood still soaking the bandages around my poor ankle, and also from fear of what was to happen, obviously soon. Watson had to have been running through this woods for nearly a half-hour, soaked to the skin, weaponless and lightless, and trying to lead them as far away from me as he could; surely we were nearly into the next county by now and nearing the edge of the forest?

I paused for a moment as I felt myself grow dizzy in the dim, murky light that filtered patchily through the tree cover. My head swam momentarily and then, thankfully, cleared when I concentrated upon breathing deeply. After a moment when I had further regained my senses, painful though they were, I continued, edging forward in the direction of the bobbing pin-point of light I could see at intervals.

The darkness and shadows and grey light seemed to blend with my own determination and detachment from the pain that made me want to do no more than lie down and die right there, mixing together in a blurred sort of distorted reality that to this day still is a confused memory for the most part. I stumbled gamely onward, concentrating on keeping my feet, moving noiselessly, and listening for signs of movement nearby.

My leg, which had hitherto been freezing due to the blood seeping down it, was growing rather warm – my mind registered that that was not a good thing, but I could waste no time nor brainpower upon deciding why exactly. I had to keep going.

Just as my hazy senses started to blur again, moving the darkness and light into a grey muddle before my eyes, a sudden shout from up ahead of me shattered the peace of the forest. A dog began to bark and snarl, a startled bat flitted by my head, and this time there was definitely more than one voice amid the sounds of a desperate struggle. I had no doubt that one of the unrecognizable voices was that of my foolish friend.

Throwing caution to the wind, I moved forward in my haste and promptly tripped over a jutting tree root, sprawling upon the forest floor in a pile of dead foliage. My crutches went skittering into a nearby bush and I was forced to waste precious seconds fumbling for them in the blackness, my heart clenching as the sounds of an angry dog – or two – and the crack of branches breaking, and shouting filled the quiet of the woods.

Finally I staggered again to my feet and hurried toward the lantern-light, which was no longer at waist level but at a fixed height at shoulder level, trying my best to keep both my balance and my senses as I was feeling rather sick at the moment. A dog whined and howled in pain suddenly and then there was a sharp cracking noise – not a gunshot, but something striking human or animal bone.

And the noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

I fought down the urge to collapse on the spot and be sick, firmly reeling my fuzzy consciousness into something resembling logic. The lantern was not that far away now, and I managed somehow despite the cold band of ice that had wrapped round my chest to creep close to the circle of light in the darkness, staying out of sight behind some bushes.

It was a small clearing between a few large yew trees. Two men, armed with rifles and clad in the flimsiest of clothing (obviously been aroused by the master of the house) stood there one holding the lantern and the other one a monstrous dog – the other enormous mastiff lay apparently dead off to the right, half-blocked by one of the men.

I leant my right crutch against a tree and pulled the revolver from my pocket, unbuttoning Watson's coat for it was big enough to hamper my movements. I still could see nothing beyond the two men and the growling mastiff the one held on a taut leash…

Then the one hung the lantern on a tree branch and reached down out of my sight. A moment later I was forced to clamp my jaw shut to prevent a reaction as the enormous fellow hauled a half-conscious figure to his unsteady feet and slammed my friend's back against the closest tree, searching his pockets. Watson's head lolled limply forward, and he raised a weak hand to rub at his neck, only to have it caught and pinioned along with his other behind his back as he moaned, struggling back to consciousness.

The man who now held him had finished searching and glared at his fellow – I now recognised them to be the butler and the private manservant to the master of the house, the spy we were after.

"He hasn't got them," he snapped angrily, tightening his grip on my friend who was blinking furiously, shaking his head to clear it from the blow he had received.

The butler allowed the mastiff the entire length of his chain, and the dog snapped its massive jaws only inches from Watson's legs, causing him to jump despite his immense control.

"Of course he hasn't," a new voice joined the group, and the man himself – who shall here be given the name Jones for security's sake – stepped out from the trees, immaculately clad in his hunting wear and apparently unarmed. "That man is not Sherlock Holmes, Deavers."

"Wha?" the manservant gasped, looking at my friend.

Watson smiled a bit faintly. "Hallo, Jones," he gasped in pain, though he was outrageously calm. "Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting the famous detective."

"It isn't Holmes?" the butler, Jamison, asked in irritation, letting the dog come within a half-inch of my friend, who eyed it with a suppressed fear that I could clearly see.

"Of course not," Jones chuckled, drawing near to the circle of light and right up to the doctor, who lifted his head defiantly to meet the spy's towering height. "Didn't you see the trap that had been sprung back at the house, Jamison? This man is no fool, he's wearing Holmes's coat so our beauties could pick up the scent. I have to say I'm impressed that you could take out three of my pups and my best sharpshooter, all without a weapon, Doctor. Quite impressive, even for a soldier as yourself."

Watson blinked, but inclined his head in acknowledgement of the sincere admiration.

"You realise of course the penalty of being a spy, and why I cannot, though I do admire your intelligence and resourcefulness, allow you to live?"

"Quite," Watson muttered dryly. "Don't you want to know where the papers are, however, before you do something so final as silencing the man who knows exactly where?"

"Come, Doctor," Jones said coolly. "I've no doubt Mr. Holmes is already back at the agent's house, despite a bad leg, by this point in the game. Why else would you be running about in the man's coat, leading us in the opposite direction? Quite brilliant, actually. But incredibly foolish."

"Most soldiers are at some point," he replied calmly, almost resignedly, and I felt a ridiculous burst of pride at his bearing and his courage, two things I never would be able to attain no mater how long I cultivated either.

"But I rather think the foolishness is well worth it, don't you?" Watson added with an exhausted, resigned smirk. "You've lost, Jones – it's over. You've lost _everything_."

The spy's face animated in a sudden flash of anger at the words, and he swore a most foul oath in his native language, barking out an order that I could not understand as I cannot speak said language. But it took no deduction to see from the way that Jamison suddenly dropped my friend with a rough push, sending him sprawling against the trunk of a tree, what they had in mind.

Watson scrambled to a position on his back, started to sit up, and then froze with a small gasp as he found himself looking into the snarling face of the remaining enormous mastiff, trained to track, drop and kill at the slightest commands. All the brute could smell was my overcoat, and with one word I knew it would perform its trained task with an impersonal vigour.

Wait…it was trained to kill by scent…hah. Two could play at that game, Doctor mine.

I grinned and, balancing carefully on my good leg, removed my friend's overcoat, tossing it noiselessly to the floor of the forest. I took the revolver in one hand and the crutch in the other and then hobbled around to a better position, both to aim into the circle of light…

…and to be _up_wind instead of down.

"Kill him," Jones said boredly in English, giving a curt nod and turning from the scene.

But before Deavers could give the order for the dog to strike, the enormous hound suddenly halted as the breeze picked up, cocking its head to the side and sniffing the air curiously. I smiled despite the throbbing of my leg, for that was exactly what I had suspected. It was trained entirely by scent, and it was smelling the same scent from two different people.

Jamison glanced questioningly at his pet and then back to Jones, whose fearsome brows had knitted in confusion as the dog stepped off my astonished friend, whining uncertainly and sniffing the air.

From where I stood I saw Watson's eyes suddenly light up in understanding and he aimed a scowl at random into the darkness, no doubt thoroughly angered with me for what I was doing. But the scowl faded as his lips hardened into a determined line, and I saw him eyeing the rifle that lay on the ground nearby – no doubt the one he had been struck with over the head or neck when he was captured.

I was about to put a bullet through the dog when it suddenly snarled and jerked its leash out of Jamison's hand – in its anger flying at the closest person who carried the scent it sought!

Watson reacted instantly, rolling out of the way, and the dog ran into the tree with a yelp, turning and lunging at him as Deavers shouted and raised his rifle, also aimed at my friend as he scrambled for the remaining weapon on the ground.

It was a hard choice but one I could not think about – Watson stood a better chance of surviving a dog than a rifle blast. I stepped into the circle, dropped Deavers with my first shot, but the kick of the enormous revolver I held knocked me off-balance and in the instant I took to steady myself Jones had taken off through the trees and the dog leapt, landing on my friend and knocking him flat on the ground as he shouted hoarsely, rolling on the ground with the fierce animal.

"Watson, don't move!" I called needlessly and without thinking how stupid the injunction really was, and desperately sighted the revolver with a hand I wished was steadier.

Instinct screamed at me, and I suddenly swung round just in time to receive Jamison tackling me to the ground. We struck with a horrible jarring thud that radiated pain all the way down my leg and ripped a cry of agony from my lips. Worse still, Watson's gun flew out of my hand somewhere and I was occupied with preventing my head from being bashed in by the burly butler.

I took a glancing blow to the head, blocked the next with my right arm, and then realised my left hand was still convulsively clutching my impromptu crutch. It was the work of a moment as Jamison got his hands round my neck and began to choke me, to swing it into both hands and bring it slamming upward, hitting Jamison square in the back. Assisted by my knees as I threw my body into a sort of awkward reverse somersault, the man pitched cleanly over my head with a scream and slammed into a tree, where he fell to the ground and lay still, his neck at a horrible angle.

I could still hear Watson fighting for his life against the mastiff, the sound bringing me out of the blackness threatening my senses.

I fought back the urge to faint as my leg burned as if I'd spilled acid upon it, the bandaging long since become loose in my struggles through the night, and rolled onto my stomach, scrabbling blindly for the gun amid the pain swirling blindingly around my senses. I could not find it!

I was on my hands and knees, fighting down a roiling wave of nausea and firmly refusing to allow myself to faint, when the struggle stopped suddenly. I looked up to see Jones, smiling complacently, holding the edge of the snarling dog's leash in one hand and Jamison's discarded rifle in the other, his eyes gleaming in triumph at me.

Watson was gasping for breath, his shoulders heaving as he lay on the ground with one hand clenched over his forearm, where I could see my Inverness and the coat beneath shredded by the dog's teeth and iron jaws.

But even as I tried to stagger to my feet with the aid of only one crutch, my friend somehow got to his, eyeing Jones questioningly and looking back at me.

"Certainly, Doctor, you may help him up," the man said calmly, covering a yawn with his sleeve. "No sense in you both dying on your knees; I've more respect for you both than that."

I fought to accomplish the feat without his help, but I was forced to accept Watson's aid as he put an arm about my waist, pulling my arm over his shaking shoulders and slowly standing me upright.

"I am…so sorry," I murmured, for I had thought I could fix the whole matter and apparently I could not.

"I know," he whispered in response, his eyes flitting about desperately.

"Now, Mr. Holmes, those papers if you please; I'd take them after I kill you but I really would prefer they not be stained with blood," Jones said calmly.

I felt Watson stiffen, and thought for a moment that it was because of the emotionless way the spy was speaking – not so, for I felt him relax a moment later and saw a sudden fierce light I recognised as that instinct of his, to never give up even when the rest of the world was falling apart around and on top of him, flicker up in his eyes as he finished surveying the scene.

"I'll get the papers," he said hastily to Jones, to all appearances not wanting me to be shot right in front of him. But as he carefully, slowly, moved slightly in front of me to open my jacket, he whispered, barely audibly, to me. I tried to not see the deep pain in his eyes or the blood soaking his sleeve, but concentrated on his words, uttered so quietly Jones could not possibly hear them.

"That rifle he holds is the one I grabbed on the ground…it jammed when I tried to shoot the dog, mud in the barrel." His hand reached slowly for the packet of papers. "Deavers's rifle is ten feet behind you to the left. Get out of the way as fast as you can. I'll take Jones, then the dog."

I blinked and refrained from nodding, for there was no need. He had made it clear he was the commanding officer in this particular battle, and I was not about to disobey.

Watson stepped back with the precious papers held in his hand, and after seeing me steady upon my feet he started slowly toward Jones with the packet, to all appearances resigned to his fate.

Then so suddenly it surprised even me, my friend reached out the papers to Jones, then grabbed the rifle from the startled spy's loose hands and slammed it down on the mastiff's head before tackling Jones to the ground in a horribly stupid display of heroics.

The papers flew from his hand into the grass, and I saw the dog shake its head, stunned, and then seeing the things flying through the air went after them – apparently it had been trained to protect the master's property too. I collapsed more than sat on the ground and reached back for Deavers's rifle, hefting it and putting a blast of shot through the snarling dog before it reached the papers, feeling no remorse after seeing what it had done to my friend's arm.

Watson himself was in the act of getting himself pummeled by a man nearly twice his size, six inches taller than he. It had been a single shot rifle, and besides that I could not have gotten off another shot anyhow, without risking harming my friend. In addition to that I was growing rather dizzy, the darkness that had been at bay all night starting to encroach upon my senses. I fought desperately to stay alert, trying to figure out something to even the odds, when suddenly I saw Jones's flying hand grope on the ground and reach for the discarded rifle, bringing it up into the fight.

Watson's eyes lit up in a panic that was really unreasonable, for if the thing was jammed it could do no more than misfire. He grasped the thing desperately, pointing it up as the two men rolled upon the ground for possession of it, coming so close to me I was only a few feet away from touching both of them. For a deathly moment their grunts and the sounds of a violent struggle were the only things that filled the tense stillness, and then I jumped, crying out in alarm as the apparently jammed rifle suddenly went off in a deafening blast.

And then the world stopped for me, for Watson suddenly rolled off the spy and lay curled on the ground, unmoving.


	10. FQaC, 3 of 3

**Title**: For Queen and Comrade, Part 3/3  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: (this part) Holmes, Watson, Mycroft  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 4594  
**Warnings**: violence, hard choices  
**Summary**: By request of PGF many months ago, to take one of her 221B drabbles (from _Peek Through a Gaslit Window_, if you want to go read it first, though the first few lines are basically verbatim) and make it into a full-blown angst story. I tried it, and shattered my writer's block when it took off in an unexpected direction. Which do you choose when your loyalties lie equally eith both?  
**Author's Notes**: Yes, this is just mostly-pointless angst.

* * *

In a flash of cold fear that entirely drowned out the agony of my throbbing leg, I staggered to my knees and then my feet, balancing my weight upon the stock of the long rifle – and then I saw Jones, who had not moved, indeed still lay there clutching the rifle in his hands.

And now lay almost entirely without a forehead – he must have taken the brunt of the rifle blast when it went off. For the countless time that night I resisted the urge to be ill and instead limped over to see to Watson, who was now (thank heaven!) starting to sit up groggily, rubbing his ears and shaking his head. Stunned and partly deaf from the blast at close quarters, probably – I saw no blood other than on his sleeve from the dog's savaging.

He was already on his feet, wavering slightly before standing upright, when I suddenly slipped on a patch of wet earth and staggered, about to lose my balance. He turned in time to see me waving my arms wildly like a child on a play balance-beam, and the smile that crossed his face at my comical appearance and his small laugh as he jumped to catch me seemed a bit on the hysterical side.

Indeed, I felt weak and limp with relief myself, and a bizarre sort of amusement that we were both still alive, in a clearing with three dead men and two mastiffs, with the papers still safe, seemed terribly ironic for some reason. I choked back a laugh of my own as his strong arms hastily went round me and prevented my hundredth or thousandth fall of the night, and I clutched at the fabric of my now tattered Inverness, letting myself go completely limp against his shoulder in my relief and joy that he was still alive after that foolhardy stunt, as we more slid than knelt to the ground.

He was shaking even more violently than I, and nearly choking me to boot, so tightly was he holding me, his whole body trembling and not from the cold, though I was certain that was a part of it, and he was murmuring something almost incoherently.

"You said that rifle was jammed," I choked the accusation into his shoulder, trying to regain control of my rampant and completely frayed nerves and emotions.

"I know," he answered with a convulsive shudder, his arms tightening. "You wouldn't have let me do it otherwise."

"You're dead right I would not have!" I snapped viciously, fisting my hands into the fabric of my destroyed coat in lieu of throttling the man. "Just as I would never have allowed you to pull such a fool trick as this entire bloody escapade was! What the blazes did you think you were doing? When I woke up I thought you w-"

I clamped my jaw shut as I heard my voice crack and threaten to shatter just as my composure had already a moment ago. My injury forgotten, the stress of the last hour threatened now to crush my mind even as Watson's shivering grip was doing to my ribs (which hurt now, he needed to loosen up, in all seriousness), and my eyes were burning from something other than the chilly air.

"I – I'm sorry," he whispered helplessly, sadly, as I swallowed in a choking gasp, my breathing increasing far too quickly as my efforts to remain calm evidently were not working properly. "But I can't tell you I wouldn't do it again in the same circumstances…you've got to calm down, now, Holmes, you're breathing too fast. Easy now."

I could have told him that – I could barely keep conscious now, the nausea and the darkness that had continually threatened to claim me the last couple of hours suddenly looming over me. I released my grip on his – my – coat, and tried to breathe deeply as the pain from my leg began to pulsate oddly in my head and ears, making me sick and dizzy.

"That's better…now, let's see about that leg," he whispered gently, keeping one arm behind my back and putting the other under my knees to straighten them, helping me to lie back with my back against a tree and removing my own coat to put over my person.

I wanted to tell him his coat was just out in the woods, but found I could not do much more than move my hand weakly that direction. He nodded understandingly as always and caught my hand, putting it back under the coat and then moving to probe gingerly at my leg.

"Well, you didn't do it any good," he muttered testily, favouring me with a glare. "But the good news is apparently, though you've lost a lot of blood, there are no signs of serious damage yet. I'll wrap it back up for you, and you'll be forced to stay off it for several weeks."

I nodded weakly; for some reason this seemed like it was a good idea though I doubted I usually acquiesced that quickly. Watson left me for a moment to locate his own overcoat and came back with it and two straight sticks, with which he bound the ankle tightly in the rude splint, using my muffler and his under jacket, which had been ruined by the dog anyhow…the dog!

"Watson," I gasped, shocked at how weak my own voice was – I had lost more blood than I thought. "Your arm…"

"Is not serious," he assured me, though I was too muzzy to see if he were telling the truth or not.

He wrapped the arm in more of the makeshift bandages and then walked over to pocket the papers we had worked so hard and committed so many acts of violence to obtain, safely stowing them before coming back to my side where he collapsed for a moment on his knees, breathing heavily and still shivering. Surely we could not be far away from the edge of the forest, but I doubted I could walk any further on this blasted leg.

I said as much and received a look that told me in no uncertain terms that _no_, I was _not_ going to be walking any more on it. I did not appreciate being hauled about over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes either, and told him so, folding my arms impassively.

"I can carry you without resorting to that method," he chuckled, buttoning his coat and sitting up at last, having regained his breath for the most part. "That was a battle-field carry, Holmes, where getting out of the danger zone is far more important than the patient's immediate comfort. If you can get to your feet for a moment I can carry you; we can't be far from the main road and perhaps we'll meet a farmer or something on the way to town."

I eyed his unsteady stance as he stood, his injured arm, and the fact that he was still wet from the knees down and shivering all over, but my protests died upon my lips as he crouched determinedly and slipped an arm round me, lifting me and helping me get my coat back on. I remained swaying unsteadily, feeling weak and dizzy, when we had finished, with my arm clutched about his neck to keep myself from keeling over or being sick right there.

"Ready?" he asked softly.

I managed a nod, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain as his injured arm went under my knees and lifted me with surprising gentleness, supporting my bad leg the best he could under the circumstances. And finally, I decided that it would be safe to allow myself to relax my hold upon reality and so finally let myself go limp against him, closing my eyes and allowing my head to slump backward against the warmth of his coat as the darkness finally took me with it.

--

To say that I was alarmed at my agent's sending for me when my brother and the Doctor did not return at the appointed hour is a most colossal understatement. When, fifteen minutes after my arrival, their trap came crashing into the inn yard minus the both of them, that feeling exponentially multiplied and I began making preparations for the fate of the world as we knew it, for it was obvious they had failed.

Therefore I was utterly unprepared for the Doctor, carrying my brother, to march into the shared sitting room where I was strewing papers about and gnawing my lip in worry. The man spared me a curt nod over my brother's head, kicked Sherlock's bedroom door open, and disappeared without a word, leaving both me and my agent (stupid slow fellow that he is, I assigned him to the foreign office now) staring after them.

I started into the room, wondering what was wrong with my brother for the both of them looked as if they had taken on the entire combined forces of Europe, and found my way blocked by the Doctor. Eyes glinting steely, his lips set in a thin line, he shoved a packet of papers – _the _papers – into my hands with no explanation.

"Get me hot water, my bag, and a change of clothing for your brother. _Now_," he ordered, shutting the door in my face without another word.

My agent began to snigger, after which I threw him out of the room to put the papers in the safe we kept in this place for such clandestine reasons. I myself sent for the water, rather irritated with the Doctor for his peremptory manner – but I well knew that particular look upon his face and it was like with one's bare hands taming a she-bear protecting her cubs if one crossed him in that state. I was neither that stupid nor that willing to have my head bitten off like only an ex-soldier could do.

When I had the items in my hands as a peace-offering, I opened the bedroom door and found the doctor cleaning mud off his hands and face in front of the wash-stand. He looked at me in the mirror.

"The bag and the water beside the bed, if you please. If you wish, you may change his wet clothing, but watch his left leg," he directed coolly.

I set the black case and the water-basin by the bed and looked down at my brother; the ghastly pallour of his face matched the sheets – he seemed a mop of unkempt black hair and everything else blended together.

"What happened?" I voiced the reasonable question.

"I will tell you everything at the official debriefing, Mr. Holmes, and not before," the Doctor snapped. "My first priority is seeing your brother remains alive after a massive bloodloss and with several fractured bones in his ankle. Either aid me, and remove his wet clothes to replace them with dry ones, or leave; but choose one for I haven't the time to stand here and exchange pleasantries with you."

My surprise at hearing the man use my title was only surpassed by his coldly stern attitude – one that would match my brother's or mine in its granite hardness. That was completely out of character; the man was obviously not himself and aware of it, keeping a tight rein upon his usually open emotions because of it.

I silently removed Sherlock's wet clothes and replaced them, rolling up the left trouser leg for the Doctor to examine properly. It appeared to me to be a mess of bloody, haphazard bandaging, but my brother was in no position to complain and I was not about to with the Doctor about to explode at the slightest wrong pressure.

He thanked me perfunctorily and then set about ignoring me, arranging bottles of disinfectant and other supplies within his reach on the table.

"You may want to find him a set of crutches, Mr. Holmes," the man said calmly. "I doubt he will want to stay on bed-rest for the remainder of the necessary four weeks. Now I must ask you to leave the room whilst I attend to your brother."

"I beg your pardon?" I retorted with some irritation, for that was going entirely too far even for that man.

"You heard my orders, Mr. Holmes," Watson snapped, glaring at me over my brother's bed. "And if you do not follow them I have his right as the attending physician to throw you out. I suggest you do not push me to an extreme this morning, as the night has done enough to do that already."

My mouth opened and shut as my mind for once was at a loss as to how to counter this unusual personality in front of me – never before had I seen such a cold smouldering rage in the man's eyes, specially directed at anyone he usually regarded as an ally. Something had gone wrong, that was plain, and what's more he blamed me for it apparently.

There would be time enough to thrash that out after that horrible mess of Sherlock's leg had been attended to.

"I will be outside, waiting for your report, Doctor," I said through my teeth, striding to the door and shutting it resoundingly behind me.

I sent the returned agent for a pair of crutches and a good solid breakfast and a pot of tea – I was going to need both of the latter I fancied.

--

It was an hour later that the Doctor opened the door of the room and gestured me in, looking no less strained than he had before. I walked over to where my brother lay, his ankle and leg wrapped in a plaster cast and elevated on a spare pillow. His face was still a deathly white, and he had not regained consciousness.

"A steel-jawed trap," the Doctor said flatly. "Snapped around his ankle. Missed the _tendo Achilles_ but fractured four of the smaller bones in his ankle and foot. The breaks in the skin have been cleaned and sutured, but if infection sets in the cast will have to come off. He cannot – and I repeat, cannot – move from that bed for a week at least, if that is the case. With the cast on, he may move about on crutches for the next four weeks."

I glanced at the ankle the man indicated and nodded, knowing my brother was going to be a holy terror by that point in being so incapacitated. And I did not want to know how he had been caught in a steel animal trap.

"He also has several bruises, no doubt from falling, and various minor cuts and scratches from the forest brambles and so on," the Doctor continued in the same eerie detached voice. "I shall watch him to see that he does not start fevering. Were the papers all in order?"

I nodded. "Quite, Doctor. Safe where they belong and will be speeding to Whitehall with all haste as soon as daylight is upon us and they can be done so safely."

"You will need to dispatch a team of agents to clean up Jones's house," the man stated, corking his antiseptic and calmly replacing it with the unused supplies into his bag.

"I beg your pardon?" I queried with some wariness.

"Between the two of us we were forced to kill four mastiffs…and their owners," he said blankly. "Jones, his butler, and two servants. There was no alternative. You will find them all in the forest surrounding the estate."

I stared in some immediate concern at the Doctor's uncharacteristic apathy about the matter. Something was not right about the whole affair.

But I had not the opportunity to further question the man, had I been brave enough to, for my brother suddenly shifted upon the pillow, murmuring something unintelligible. The Doctor instantly sat upon the edge of the bed whilst I went to the other side of it, and he patted my brother's shoulder with a great gentleness.

"Holmes? Are you awake, old man?" he asked softly.

Sherlock blinked once, twice, and then his eyes, dulled by the pain reliever the Doctor had given him, sharpened into focus. He looked at the Doctor, and they softened, and then he glanced at me.

"Got us safely back across our own lines, then," he muttered wearily.

I was surprised at the military analogy, but then they both had been rigorously drilled in the requirements of such an important military and governmental matter so it probably was on both their minds.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Like something took a bite out of my leg," he grumbled, glancing down at the cast encasing the offending limb.

"Something did," the Doctor replied with a faint smile.

"But you accomplished your mission, Sherlock," I told him with a deal of pride. "Her Majesty will personally wish to thank you, no doubt, for your service."

"No." I was startled at the flat denial in my brother's voice.

"What?"

"No. Mycroft, this mission was a disaster from first to last," Sherlock spat with more fire than I would suspect from a man who had lost that much blood. "And I never want you sending us on such a mission again, do you hear me, brother?"

I felt my eyes widen, for never had he used that tone with me before. What was the matter with both of them?

My brother winced as he moved, and an expression of pain crossed his features as he looked to the Doctor for explanations, his eyes sliding closed in weariness. I looked at the Doctor, and was met again with that cool hazel gaze that was far more unnerving than Sherlock's little tantrums could ever be. The man had firsthand seen war and everything it entailed, and sometimes he frightened those of us that never had.

"The mission was a disaster, as he said, Mr. Holmes," the physician recited almost mechanically. "I disobeyed the orders of a commanding officer –"

"We both did," Sherlock interjected with spirit, glaring at his friend.

"We both did," the Doctor amended automatically. "We disobeyed orders for the sake of seeing the other to safety. In a military situation that is grounds for dishonourable discharge, to discard a mission for one man's life. For that reason the mission was nearly a disaster – I refused to obey Holmes's orders in favour of keeping him alive. And what's more, _I am not sorry for it in the least_." This last was declared in a fit of temper, as if he were daring me to challenge his choice. The man was treating this like a military assignment, which it was – but for heaven's sake, it was not strictly protocol!

"And I in turn had the plans in my possession and could have returned with them intact and unharmed," my brother added softly. "Instead I turned back and nearly lost them again trying to extricate this idiot from the certain death he had imposed upon himself."

"This _idiot_ was attempting to balance his duty to his country _and_ to his comrade, thank you very much! There was no alternative! This was not an assignment with clear values of right and wrong – you've no idea what it's like to be in that position, either of you!" the Doctor snapped angrily, bringing his fist down with force upon the bedside table in a fit of temper at my brother's words.

I started and Sherlock sat up, swaying on one elbow when the man gave an exclamation of pain and gasped, cradling the arm close to his chest with his eyes tightly clenched shut.

"Doctor, you are injured as well," I stated the obvious in some concern, for the man looked positively ill.

"It is nothing," he gasped, forcing his head up and blinking back reflexive tears of pain. "I shall deal with it when we are done here." He stood in definitive defiance, replacing the remaining items in his bag.

"You need to deal with it now, Watson – and you're still wearing those soaked clothes!" my brother said, with more concern than I had seen from him in many a month.

"I have been ever so slightly _busy_!" the man shot back at the both of us, snapping his bag shut.

The Doctor began to pick up the pitcher of water, now soiled with muddy silt that he had cleaned from my brother's face and hands during his care for him, and even as Sherlock gave a cry of alarm I saw his friend suddenly replace the heavy pitcher shakily on the table, putting a hand to his eyes and swaying dizzily before giving a small gasp and falling heavily – headed straight for the floor had I not moved faster than any being of my bulk ever should, to catch his arms as he collapsed.

"Good heavens…Doctor, are you quite all right?" I asked in genuine concern, my irritation with the man disappearing instantly at the sight of his flushed face as I helped him limply back to his chair and pushed his head toward his knees.

Sherlock had scrambled into a position despite his obvious discomfort where he could lean on one elbow, catching his friend's wrist with the other and gripping it tightly as the man gasped, trying to catch his breath.

I had thought my brother to be making a kind gesture but upon his look of alarm I realised that was not the only reason.

"Mycroft – he's fevering, that mastiff attacked him last night and tore up his arm – it's burning," he snapped, indicating the bag the Doctor had just foolishly put away. "The fool didn't even care for it yet. Get it."

"No," the man in question gasped faintly, jerking his head up with a deeper blush suffusing his face. "I am…quite all right…just dizzy for a moment…"

"Shut up," Sherlock said rudely, moving over to the other side of the bed and pointing sternly to the remaining portion of the thing. "Mycroft, make yourself useful, fetch his dressing-gown and some warm clothes from the other room. Watson, sit."

"You are not doing anything of the kind –"

"Sit! I may have lost a bit of blood last night but I've still enough to intimidate and, if necessary, physically overpower a man with a chronic bad shoulder and leg, a wounded arm, and a knock on the head that he still hasn't had treated!" my brother snapped, his worry sharpening his voice into a razor's edge.

The Doctor choked out a laugh and moved over to sit on the bed beside Sherlock, leaning with a sigh back against the pillows my brother shoved against the headboard and obediently rolling up his sleeve whilst my brother poked curiously about in his medical bag.

"Now…where is that stuff that stings so when you put it on…" he muttered, clinking bottles around.

"Watch it! It's called _antiseptic_, and I'm almost out – don't spill it," the Doctor growled testily as I tried not to laugh and exited, going into the other room and returning with clean clothing for the Doctor to put on.

I left to go see about another pot of tea, and by the time I had returned my brother had apparently done a passable job of getting his friend into dry, warm clothes and was finishing up cleaning the nasty-looking gashes on the Doctor's arm with a practised ease that told me they both had done this on more occasions than I could count.

The scratches were not wide but a few were fairly deep, and all looked painful. Despite the relative protection of an overcoat, it had to have hurt like all blazes – and from the inflamed state of the wounds it was no wonder the man was both slightly off his normal control and also feverish.

Indeed, by the time my brother was gently wrapping the entire area in clean white bandaging, the poor fellow was leant back against the pillows, his eyes closed and his rather flushed face drawn with pain. Sherlock finished, tied a neat double knot in the bandaging, and rolled the sleeve of the Doctor's shirt back down, receiving a whispered word of thanks which he waved off brusquely. He then struggled to lean down despite the cast to pull the blankets up over his motionless friend, scowling as he could not quite reach the coverlet.

I stepped forward and accomplished the task for him, before making certain Sherlock re-elevated his ankle on the provided pillow and lay back himself on the other side of the enormous four-poster bed. I pulled a chair round to his side and sat upon it, looking at my brother with that glare that indicated I wanted a full, off-the-record explanation of the night's events.

The story he told was both a shock, for I had no idea the mission would become that deadly and I freely admitted my costly error, but also rather predictable – for I well knew that in such a situation neither of them would have left without the other, Empire at stake or not. Such was the risk of sending a team like that into the business, a fact which I had taken care to point out when I was told to engage my brother. The powers that be would not be denied, however, and the case was set. I knew when we sent them off that either both of them _and_ the papers would return, or none of them.

When I said as much, Sherlock stared at me most rudely, and the Doctor's fever-bright eyes slitted open to look at me incredulously.

"Yes, Doctor, I do not fault either of you for it – in fact I rather expected something of the sort," I sighed sadly. "You've no call to be ashamed of the case, either of you, for it was a rousing success."

"There are four men _dead_," the Doctor said flatly, closing his eyes again in a definite gesture of finality.

"And one more that would have been were it not for you," Sherlock interjected gently, putting a hand on the man's shoulder as he shuddered visibly.

"And one of them I killed with no weapon," the Doctor suddenly whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his hand in the coverlet. "In the dark, after I'd killed the dog…he jumped me with that rifle, and all I had was a tree branch…I had no idea I even had until I tried to find his pulse in the dark…heaven forgive me, I killed him…"

The poor fellow blanched as white as my brother at the words, and Sherlock instantly covered the Doctor's trembling fingers with his at this bit of news, which had obviously happened before he had reached the Doctor in the forest.

"It's all right, old chap," he whispered softly, gently patting his friend's unsteady hand. "We all know there was no viable alternative."

"This should not have been such an ordeal," I agreed with the physician's previous sentiments as gently as I could. "It was not supposed to be of that magnitude – and for that I apologise, Doctor. The decision to take a life in the interest of justice should never fall upon a volunteer civilian." Personally I was of the opinion that it had been a clear case of self-defense, but I knew the Doctor was thinking otherwise.

"No, it should not," the man breathed softly, sadly, turning on his side toward my brother – purposely seeking his comfort and no one else's? – without opening his eyes, squeezing them shut against pain or mental disturbance.

"That's enough, Mycroft," my brother sighed, watching his friend with a face creased in concern, and gently laying a hand on the Doctor's burning forehead. "Would you be so kind as to fetch a cold wet cloth for me?"

I nodded and retrieved another pitcher of clean water, setting it within Sherlock's reach for it was obvious he had no intention of leaving the Doctor alone at the moment, despite the fact that I could see he was himself in a deal of pain. I could only prop him into a comfortable position beside his friend and leave them, knowing that would be the best thing for the both of them after what they had endured last night, unfortunately at my direction. A mistake I would not make again, nor allow anyone else to do so for me – and one I wished had not been made the first time. The sordid affair had ended most deplorably, and it was simply not fair to the men who had agreed to serve their country at a nasty personal cost.

But when I returned to the room an hour later to check on them and found them both asleep, Sherlock's limp hand resting upon the Doctor's shoulder and the latter sleeping peacefully in my brother's protective (if asleep at the moment) care, I was indeed grateful that _neither_ of them had followed orders last night.

The Doctor sighed uneasily, shifting slightly on the mattress, and Sherlock's hand tightened unconsciously in his sleep upon his friend's shoulder, whereupon the man lay still again, the lines of pain and illness in his face fading slightly.

For though I would die a thousand deaths rather than admit the fact, I did not think I could stand losing either of them, much less both of them. All the glory, power, and supremacy of the government and its agencies could never replace a family, whether it be blood or surrogate.

A truth which the two of them had learnt better than I, apparently. I closed the door silently, for I had a deal of serious thinking to do myself.


	11. Similarities

**Title**: Similarities  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 150  
**Warnings**: mentions of off-screen past character death  
**Summary**: Something sad inspired by MISS  
**Author's Notes**: I don't believe I posted this here; if I did, it really didn't belong in my Situations story because technically it's not a drabble, it's a sesquidrabble. So.

* * *

He should have realised, but unfortunately did not, that Watson was far too silent on their way back to the inn. He should have noticed the increasingly pronounced limp of his companion, that his face was void – carefully void – of any emotion, and that his responses to Holmes's remarks were perfunctory at best, but unfortunately did not.

He should have realised the similarities – a young, beautiful woman; golden-haired and blue-eyed; not married long; dying of consumption and leaving a grieving husband behind – but unfortunately did not. He should have perceived that the Doctor barely touched his supper, but he had gone to return Pompey and so unfortunately did not.

When he returned and discovered he could hear muffled weeping from behind the locked door, he realised how inexcusably blind he had been. In earlier years he should have regretted this and left Watson to himself; now, fortunately he did not.


	12. Friendship Indeed, 1 of several

**Title**: Friendship Indeed  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Holmes, Lestrade (eventually Watson), OC Cummings  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 100 each  
**Warnings**: slow updates  
**Summary**: The story behind #23 - Child, and #19 - Soul, of my **_Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes_** sentences, Chapter One (you may want to look the sentences up to refresh your memory)  
**Author's Notes**: Written by request for an LJ friend. Drabble arc, WIP, and will be slow updating. Thanks again to med_cat for the title. :)

* * *

In his years on the Force, Inspector Lestrade had seen many things that would fit under the heading of _ghastly_ – but none held the same appalling fascination as watching Sherlock Holmes lose the contents of his stomach one instant and stagger toward his wardrobe the next, bellowing orders to Mrs. Hudson between gasps.

"Mr. Holmes," Lestrade sighed patiently. "If you really think that _One_, I am letting you run about London while you're sicker than an alley dog; or _two_, that you would be of any use at all supposing we _do_ find him, then you – get back in here!"

--

Wretchedly huddled into a long-limbed lump, Holmes looked beyond miserable – but to his credit, Lestrade admitted, he made not a sound even when the cab slung round a wet street-corner and swayed onward without waiting for either of their stomachs to catch up with the horse.

His lips did press together, thinning into an invisible dash across his chalky face, and Lestrade briefly wondered if he could get the driver's attention in time to pull to the side if necessary.

Fortunately, Holmes managed to make it into the Inspector's office before collapsing in a shivering heap on the nearest chair.

--

"Stupid fool," Lestrade muttered under his breath, casting a worried eye at his pale companion. "Mr. Holmes," he continued, and waited until the detective's fevered eyes floated upward to his face. "You cannot expect me to let you continue on like this. Besides, you know the Doctor will kill you – me too, probably – when he finds what you've been about."

Holmes's lips twitched in a sickly smile. "He'll be so glad to see me he won't have the heart to be angry."

"Well, now, that is a pretty bit of logic," the Inspector retorted dryly, and bellowed for a sergeant.

--

After an hour, Lestrade was at the end of his rope (namely, close to hanging himself). Finally the Inspector stormed from his office, leaving a flustered Sergeant Cummings to placate a sick and extremely irritable private consultant.

"Mr. Holmes, we are doing everything we –"

"Sergeant, in my experience that is not saying much," Holmes murmured, rubbing the back of his wrist across his shimmering brow.

The door slammed to pronounce Lestrade's return to throw a tray down upon the desk.

"Get two cups of that tea down him," he growled, and stalked off again to find their principal witness.

--

Sergeant Cummings had never, _ever_, respected Dr. Watson as much as he did upon his own attempt to get some fluids into Sherlock Holmes.

He'd been unaware that a gentleman even _knew_ such words; obviously part of Mr. Holmes's skill in disguises included an ability to fit in with the roughest of sailors. He was, unfortunately, still coaxing when Lestrade returned, dragging a young man.

The Inspector promptly sent Holmes a glare that would have turned a typical Yarder to dust (Cummings could testify).

"Drink that, or I'll see you put in a cell until we find him," he snapped.


	13. Trifles

**Title**: Nothing So Important as Trifles  
**Author**: KCS  
**Characters**: Watson, Mrs. Hudson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 150  
**Warnings**: Slight reference to the beginning ot Granada's SCAN. The usual FINA spoilers, including CD  
**Summary**: Written for the prompt _Granadaverse. Watson returns to Baker Street after Reichenbach._  
**Author's Notes**: Written for an LJ friend. Remember that in Granada, Baker Street wasn't set on fire, and Watson wasn't married.

* * *

The Doctor's half-coherent telegram was even less enlightening than the newspapers, but Martha Hudson was a strong woman, and only greeted her remaining lodger with silent empathy and a hope that he would someday look more man than shadow.

A cup of tea over murmured explanations, and Watson finally mounted the stairs to the sitting room. She thought she had succeeded in removing the more personal traces of the late Mr. Sherlock Holmes, allowing the Doctor to grieve without triggering agonizing reminders of his friend.

That hope crumbled when she entered after a terrible hour's silence, to find him staring at the mantel. Transfixed atop the unpaid bills was a small note-to-self, in a familiar scrawl:

_April 26 – Watson returns from holiday! Remember to purchase cigars._

Numbly the Doctor's empty eyes met hers over the cigar-box he clutched. "He was running for his life," he whispered. "And he still remembered…"

* * *

(bold emphasis mine)

_"My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet. I went out about midday to transact some business in **Oxford Street**. As I passed the corner which leads from Bentinck Street on to the Welbeck Street crossing…"_

_-The Final Problem_

_"…for when I see the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, **Oxford Street**, I know that my friend Watson is in the neighbourhood."_

_-The Hound of the Baskervilles  
_


	14. Louder than Words

**Title**: Louder than Words  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 221  
**Warnings**: Pointless prompt answer  
**Summary**: Possible scene that could fit in an AU of my A Case of Immortality. Basically, so you don't have to wade through the oneshot to get the situation idea, when Watson returns from the RAMC in 1918 or 1919 Holmes asks him to spend a few days at his cottage, at least until his house becomes habitable again (because Queen Anne Street was actually in a district heavily bombed by Zeppelins).. This could be a possible scene from that. Written for the prompt _Ongoing repercussions of war on Watson._  
**A/N**: Supposed to be a 221B but I'm too lazy to try to find a B word that doesn't sound contrived, and the W word fit. And I created the genre anyhow so I'm entitled to make it a 221W. So there. :P

* * *

He'd thought the half-hesitation merely an endearing reaction from awkward separation. The careful attention to every word would not have, unaccompanied, given him pause; but the sad suspicion intensified as details aroused disused powers before the day faded.

He tested his theory with a composition so screeching his housekeeper fled garden-ward. And when he received the delighted smile, heard the praise, he laid the Stradivarius aside and came to sit beside his friend.

For a moment their eyes communicated silently. Then dismay and embarrassment surfaced over perfunctory applause, and his heart sank. The hesitation, the attention and consideration of his words, the imperviousness to the clamour of sea-gulls that kept even him awake – each had played in his correct deduction, but the triumph tasted bitter.

He knew, and Watson knew that he knew.

"How bad?" he asked gently.

"It may improve…" Watson sighed at his look, and continued. "Not very…if you are in close proximity," he murmured, eyes downcast.

He could hear the despair, grief, acceptance in the modulated admittance, and thrice cursed the War and the sacrifices it had cost all of them.

"Well then." He waited until the Doctor had again made eye contact, and hoped his soul could be heard clearer than his words. "We shall simply have to make sure I remain that way, now won't we?"


	15. A Resident Patient

**Title**: A Resident Patient  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 500  
**Warnings**: none  
**Summary**: Written for the request ___Watson is frustrated with a patient who won't take his advice and Holmes tries to make him feel better about it_.  
**A/N**: Supposed to be a drabble but demanded a little more.

* * *

"Come now, Doctor. It can't possibly be as bad as all that. If this fellow wishes to risk his health in such a venture, then the blame for the results can hardly be laid at your door."

The interruption into my innermost thoughts should have by that point not given me more than a moment's pause, but Holmes's awkward efforts at encouragement certainly merited a returned favor – in this case, by way of the obligatory request for his train of thought. However, my friend seemed to realise that my perfunctory astonishment was no more than a half-hearted attempt, and instead of explaining how he arrived at his conclusions he only reclined in his chair, watching me expectantly.

After a few minutes of squirming under the needle-like gaze, I exhaled. "Be that as it may, Holmes, I would still feel culpable if the fellow invites a relapse by going on that excursion. In this rainstorm, and following pneumonia…" I clarified unhappily. "…the fellow simply has no sense."

Fire-reflections danced in the detective's eyes. "With that I would concur," he mused, "as your medical advice is quite sound. However, I should not take it to heart, old fellow. Some patients are simply too stubborn, and their reasons for disobeying doctor's orders quite valid."

"And so a valid excuse is reason enough to jeopardize one man's health and to risk laying an eternal burden of guilt upon the attending physician?"

He raised an eyebrow ceiling-ward. "Why, when you know the imprudence is not of your recommendation, should you care about another man's folly?"

"Because that is my business – _caring_," I replied earnestly, leaning forward in my desire to explain my feelings. "You know how when you lose a client, a small portion of you dies inside as well?"

I heard a vague "Stuff and nonsense" muttered through my friend's tea-cup, but after a silent moment the china lowered, clinking upon the chair-arm. His eyes met mine for a moment, searching. Then, with a quiet sigh, he agreed. "I suppose that is an accurate description of the sensation, Doctor."

"Multiply that feeling exponentially then, Holmes. A detective's task is merely to resolve the problems of life; a physician's is to _prolong_ that life. To be thwarted in that endeavour by a man's accursed stubbornness is like receiving a blow to the face." I rubbed a hand wearily over my eyes, wishing the discussion had never begun. "Whether the blame _should_ be laid with me or not, does not matter. It does not prevent me from caring."

"Fascinating," Holmes murmured, stirring absently. "I'd no idea the feeling ran that deep, Doctor."

"Well, it does." Finishing my own tea, I stumbled across the room for another cup; these last seven days had been one of the longest weeks of my life.

"In that case, Doctor," Holmes called quietly after me, "I shall cancel my plans tomorrow in favour of following the Doctor's orders. Here now, Watson! I daresay Ceylon is meant to be ingested, not inhaled."


	16. Closer Than a Brother

**Title**: Closer than a Brother  
**Characters**: Holmes, Mycroft, Watson  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 4565  
**Warnings**: violence, cold-blooded Mycroft, pointless angst  
**Summary**: Was supposed to be an exercise from a different POV (and I adore Mycroft's), and if I remember correctly was written for some prompt from PGF (long, long ago) that I have no idea what exactly the prompt was. *shrug* Anyhow. This story is also where I off-handedly came up with Wilkins, my recurring character in _The Written Front_.

* * *

I was just turning down the gas in the hall for the night when I heard a ferocious pounding upon my door. As at this hour in Pall Mall, visitors of any sort are rare and those stupid enough to be out in the city at such an ungodly hour as this even rarer, I was more than a little wary of whomever it might be banging the sturdy oak in such a rude and disturbing manner.

Besides, nothing short of a national emergency was going to prevent me from my punctilious retirement at exactly half-past nine, which was in less than seven and one-half minutes.

If that were the Foreign Secretary with another ridiculous problem that could wait until morning, then I should have quite a few words to say with the Cabinet tomorrow. I am not to be disturbed in my home unless something equivalent to high treason is afoot.

As events transpired, it was nothing of the kind, though in retrospect I suppose it could be considered an emergency of a civilian type. Certainly that was my first impression, as I opened the door cautiously and was summarily shoved aside when my infernal younger brother booted it open the rest of the way with a snow-covered foot, dropping piles of grey slush all over my spotless hall.

Ordinarily such a violation of my meticulousness would earn him a round rebuke and probably an assist down the stairs – but on this occasion my vehement protests died unspoken upon my lips as I saw that he was half-dragging, half-carrying a snow and slush-covered figure that could only be that of the Doctor; no other person in the world, myself included, could elicit that particular intensity of frightened panic in Sherlock's otherwise coolly collected eyes.

"Sherlock, what in blazes are –" I began, shutting the door behind him and catching the both of them as Sherlock nearly tumbled over, slipping on the wet flooring. "Here, let me take him," I hastily said, catching hold of the Doctor's limp form and taking the weight off my brother, who was gasping and wheezing with the effort; his friend was no lightweight.

"Be…careful…" Sherlock wheezed an unnecessary admonishment between coughs. "His head…"

"What happened?" I snapped, laying the poor chap down as gently as I could (my bulk is not suited for leaning down very far) on my sitting room settee just off the hall and then turning to glare at my brother.

"First…have you…weapons, Mycroft?" my brother gasped, his shoulders heaving.

I scowled darkly at him. "Yes…" I spoke warily.

"Get them – we're being chased," he panted, bending double for a moment in an effort to catch his breath.

"Sherlock…" I gritted through my teeth, for now I was certain not to sleep tonight, and have a dreadful mess to clean up to boot. I went to my desk's gun drawer and retrieved my pistol, turning in time to see my brother drop to his knees beside his unconscious friend, brushing the still not-melting snow off the Doctor's face with a gentleness he certainly never showed as a little hellion of a child. "Why the blazes didn't you stop a policeman in the street?"

"I couldn't, Mycroft…he was…they were…I didn't know what to do…brother, please…" he pleaded in a whisper, glancing up at me as he removed his overcoat and began to tuck it round the Doctor.

I glared at him but yanked an afghan out of its proper place in my immaculate closet and tossed it to him, receiving an actually legitimately grateful response for it as he hastily used it in place of his coat.

I stepped to the window to signal the men the government had begun to employ as my bodyguards to come in the back way. At the time I thought Her Majesty was being unduly cautious, for no one outside of Whitehall knew of my importance to the government. But, it is not my place to displease Her Majesty and as such I had tolerated the men for months now, disguised as a news-vendor and a policeman patrolling outside. Finally they would be of some use – and I had no doubt that was Sherlock's intent when he burst in here so theatrically. But there would be time to murder him for the fact later. For the present, then.

"Now, Sherlock," I stated calmly, trying to interject some peace into his obviously illogical brain at the moment. "What the blazes happened, and what am I supposed to be guarding the two of you against?"

Sherlock was still on his knees beside the Doctor, his face drawn with what I could only deduce to be worry, though the sensation of seeing it upon my younger sibling's visage was both novel and alarming. He gently pushed aside the unconscious man's hair to look at his head.

"We were attacked a few minutes after we left Victoria Embankment," my brother said unsteadily. "A counterfeiting gang – we got too close to them yesterday and they must have been following us, because they struck just when we got out of sight of the New Scotland Yard."

I nodded and, seeing the blood coagulating in the Doctor's hair, vanished for a basin of warm water from the bath tap and a few (old and ragged) towels. Upon my return, Sherlock reached out to take the items from me with a hand that was shaking so badly I thought perhaps he might still be cold, except that his pale face was flushed and red.

"Thank you," he murmured, setting the basin on the floor.

"Go on, Sherlock, and strip it down to necessities – I hear my men upon the back stair," I directed, deciding to ascertain for myself how bad the injury was by opening the Doctor's cold eyelids and flashing a candle before them. Pupil response was slow and I nearly missed it – but they _were_ reacting to light.

"We can usually take a gang of six like this one was, or even eight, even on an off-day," my brother said without a trace of flippancy. EIGHT?? Was that a normal everyday occurrence??

"But he…he slipped on the ice, and then fell – hard, Mycroft," Sherlock whispered, gently moving the damp rag along the gash at the Doctor's temple. "So hard…I heard him fall and for a moment I thought –"

"We have no time for what you _thought_, Sherlock," I stated firmly, but not unkindly, for my brother really did look extraordinarily upset. "Did you have time to examine him for injuries before you carried him up here?"

"No – I beat off three of them, they ran, and the other three were still unconscious," he replied, not taking his eyes off his work. "But by the time I got him into a position where I wouldn't drag him we had no time – they were coming back for us…I'm sorry!"

I stared as his voice shook on the last two words, and somehow I had the idea that he was not speaking to me. I spared no more time on the matter, however, for at that moment my back door creaked open, I could hear it through the open kitchen door.

"Have your men be on the lookout for a tall fellow, dark green overcoat, blonde hair and sharp eyes, with a black eye by now, I hope," Sherlock said hastily, squeezing the unconscious man's shoulder for a brief moment and then scrambling to his feet and seizing my heaviest walking-stick from the nearby stand. "His two fellows were average height, heavily-built, dark haired, very rough-looking."

I was already at the kitchen door by the time my brother finished, and my brain in one swift instant registered two things: One, that the men sneaking through my back door most definitely were _not_ my Whitehall-assigned bodyguards, and Two, that they matched the description of the latter two of Sherlock's story.

I wasted no time in foolish words; whether it was lawful or not mattered little for I was and am the law. And when dealing with a gang who would have six of them taking on my brother and his half-crippled friend, I in turn would have none of taking risks in apprehension, not where my family is concerned.

Sherlock gasped and stared behind me as my two bullets hit their marks before the men could even shout a word.

"Mycroft…" he stammered, still in shock.

"Sherlock, it takes no great deduction to see that these men have recently been in a fist-fight, and taking into consideration that they are coming up my private back staircase, that makes them trespassers. Do shut your mouth, you look uncommonly like a dead fish," I said tolerantly, pocketing my pistol.

Now where in heaven's name _were_ my men? Probably unconscious at the bottom of the steps, no doubt.

Sherlock had bent over the two ruffians, feeling for a pulse and of course finding none. Finally he stood and stared at me, still somewhat numb no doubt from the swiftness of events. I only then remembered that he had said there were _three_ men, the leader of which was definitely not lying dead in my kitchen. At the same time, I felt a sudden unaccountable gust of cold wind. My apartment was _never_ draughty; what in the world was it?

Sherlock had felt the cold air as well and suddenly shoved me aside and ran back to the hall before I could even register his hyperactive activities. I followed suit and paused in the doorway of the sitting room, cursing my stupidity. How could I have forgotten to lock the front door, even in the ridiculous upsetting of my habits? Somehow we both had neglected to do so, or else this fellow had simply picked the lock on the door (which actually was not hard to do, according to Sherlock who has done it on more than one occasion, to my great annoyance).

I dared not, nor had I time to, remove my pistol from my dressing-gown pocket, for a tall chap with light hair and a very nasty-looking black eye was holding a pistol aimed at my brother's heart.

Sherlock was standing at bay, between the couch with its unconscious occupant and the counterfeiter; and my doltish sibling was glaring at the man in a manner that was far too stupid a look to be giving anyone who was intent upon murdering one's self. The fool can be deucedly careless sometimes, especially regarding his own health.

"You'll just delay it, you know, Holmes," the fellow growled, his one good eye gleaming hatred at my brother – Sherlock always has made enemies wherever he went.

My build makes me rather hard to miss, and so the fellow flicked me a glance and ordered me into the room as well. I took up a more prudent position beside the doorframe, hoping that my men below would get their lazy bodies in gear and earn the salary His Grace was paying them by getting up here before blood stained my carpets.

"Have you any idea, my man," I drawled, leaning against the wall, "that you're standing in the apartment of a government official? Anything you do here will be considered a direct offense against the Crown."

"I believe counterfeiting already meets tha' requirement, now doesn't it?" the fellow sneered, though he looked askance at me as if not believing my claim.

"True, but it's rather stupid of you to come up here after these two men – do you really think the two men your fellows downed before you sent them up the back way are the only people in this building in my employ? Two gunshots have already been heard from this apartment, you know," I informed the fellow calmly. He really was not the brightest star in the sky, obviously.

The man blinked his one eye, and for an instant I thought Sherlock was going to do something dreadfully foolish such as trying to tackle the gun away from him – the last thing I wished was blood on my carpets and bullet holes in my furniture. Honestly.

Thankfully, it was the Doctor that distracted my foolish brother from that rash plot I could see hatching in his inferiour brain. Watson suddenly moaned from behind my brother, shifting uneasily under the blanket Sherlock had nigh smothered him in. My brother's sallow face suddenly animated and he foolishly took his eyes from the counterfeiter to look at the Doctor.

"Pity he's waking up, Holmes – would have been painless if he had stayed out longer," the counterfeiter sighed with an affected coolness that made my stomach twist (either that or I had forgotten to take my nightly bicarbonate).

"Holmes?"

I was surprised to hear the Doctor's weak whisper, but not as surprised as my brother. I could have throttled him when he completely ignored the immediate threat to his life and turned and crouched, putting a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and murmuring something I could not hear.

My attention was arrested by the clicking of the revolver hammer as the counterfeiter pulled it back, cocking the weapon, and then aimed it in my brother's direction. Sherlock glanced up as the Doctor's eyes fluttered closed again and instantly turned so that his back was to the couch, effectively blocking any chance of the bullet making it past his own body and striking the Doctor. Whatever happened to his childhood rule of self-preservation first?

I have never before seen such a look upon my brother's face – to this day it still puzzles me as to exactly what the blazes was motivating him to act so irrationally. But whatever it was – and I suspected I knew, though he of course would never admit it to me – I most definitely appreciated the difference in his selfish temperament from his usual demanding, self-centred ways.

And there was no bloody way I was going to allow my own brother to be shot in a fit of heroic stupidity. That pleasure belonged to me, if anyone.

In the melodrama, the counterfeiter had watched but not cared that I put my hand into my dressing-gown pocket; no doubt he dismissed me as a non-threat, a politician who was all bluster and no bite, and he was about to shoot my brother without expecting any interference.

He found differently momentarily. I am charging Sherlock the price of a new dressing-gown, for the bullet hole in the right pocket is deucedly unsightly. As is the blood-stain on the rug in the sitting-room. The one on the wall has come out rather nicely with some scrubbing.

Sherlock had tensed in anticipation, apparently perfectly willing to take the first bullet in hopes that I would somehow wrest the gun away from the counterfeiter (as if!) and save the Doctor from the second, and only when the man choked and gurgled most disgustingly before melting backwards into the carpet did he gasp and look at me.

I scowled at the puddle forming underneath the man's body – the smell would linger for weeks, blast it.

To make matters even more ridiculous, my two men, much disheveled and muttering apologies, barreled into the room and gulped when they saw that I had the situation well under control.

"Her Majesty would be most pleased with your security measures," I drawled, pointing to the body on my floor. "Do remove the corpses and get them to the Yard without drawing the tabloids over in this neighbourhood, Wilkins?"

"Yes, sir," the young man muttered, his face flushed and obviously squirming under my glare. "Right away, sir."

"Don't forget to mop up in the kitchen as well," I directed sternly, reloading my pistol and firmly shutting it in its proper drawer, straightening the paperweight that had come askew in the process and then finally looking back to my brother.

Sherlock had slid down the couch in his apparent relief and was now scrambling back up, his face as white as the cliffs of Dover. I was thoroughly nonplussed to see him mop his brow and then extend a shaking hand to me.

"Thank you, brother," he muttered, but with evident heartfelt sincerity – a quality I had not seen from him in many a year.

My knitted brows unfurrowed slightly at his evident gratitude, and I smiled despite the fact that it was now a good hour and twelve minutes past the time when I should be safely and snugly abed on this chilly evening. "Be a good fellow, stoke the fire," I directed, seeing that he was still a trifle shaky, his fingers twitching nervously. "And then fetch a few blankets and linens out of the hall closet."

"Right." Eager for something to do, he dodged easily round the men hauling the counterfeiter's body from my sitting room and bolted down the hall with all the nervous energy of a child indulging in too many holiday sweets.

My attention moved from my men to the Doctor, as he gave a whispery moan and his eyes flickered open weakly for a moment before clenching tightly shut against the light. I hastily pulled a chair close (Sherlock might be able to kneel or sit on the side of the couch, but I most definitely was not capable of doing either) and looked down at the half-conscious man.

"Doctor? Can you hear me? Do keep the chaos to a minimum, Wilkins!" I snapped in my annoyance as the idiot accidentally slammed the side of the stretcher into my spotless wallpaper.

I barely heard the muttered apology from my bodyguard as the Doctor moved his head in my direction, his face twisting in pain at the movement.

"Holmes?" he whispered thinly, trying to move his hand from under the blanket.

"Well, yes, Doctor, but not the one you mean," I replied with a smile, glancing up as my brother skidded to a stop in the room, his arms full of wool and cotton cloth. Honestly, could he do nothing in moderation? Seeing his friend awake, or close to it, Sherlock's face lit up instantly as he dropped the bunch in a pile at my feet.

I vacated the chair but my brother perched on the side of the couch, patting the Doctor's shoulder. "Rest easy, old fellow," he said softly.

The Doctor's eyes flickered open again, squinting as he looked up at my brother. "Holmes?" he asked faintly.

"Yes, old man. You took a nasty blow to the head, Watson – lie quiet now and let me take care of it, all right?"

"Where…" the question was faint and indecisive, but we both understood it.

"I am afraid my brother brought you here, Dr. Watson, instead of doing the sensible thing and going to a hospital," I said firmly, warning my brother not to go into the details of the case as they would only excite the fellow – from the looks of him he probably had a concussion and we had yet to ascertain any other injuries.

The Doctor's eyes flicked over to me, one eyebrow elevating. "Apologies for disrupting your routine, sir," he murmured, sending as reproving a look as he could manage at my brother.

I nearly choked in laughing at Sherlock's red face but decided it was best not to under the circumstances. I sorted out some clean linens to use as bandaging should the need arise and informed my brother that I had medical supplies were they required.

He gave me a cursory nod, his eyes on his friend. Then Doctor's eyes began to close again, and he moaned faintly as my brother shook him gently.

"Sorry, old chap – but you have to stay awake for a while," he said earnestly.

The Doctor frowned but nodded, sighing wearily and blinking rapidly to remain awake.

"We need to get that soaked coat off him, Sherlock," I ventured, knowing that staying half-wet and frozen was not good on anyone's health. Besides, the wet was probably mildewing the furniture under him.

My brother pulled back the blanket and started to ease his friend out of the heavy overcoat, but only succeeded when I pushed him aside and began to perform the task as he held the Doctor upright long enough for me to get it out from under him.

As I guided the fabric over his left arm, the man suddenly gasped and gave a small cry of pain, causing me to stop on the instant and my brother to stiffen as he held him.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

"My arm…I think…I landed on it," the Doctor managed through a clenched jaw as I finally removed the coat and tossed it in the direction of the fireplace.

"You hit the building and then the ground terribly hard," my brother agreed unsteadily.

Sherlock gently lowered his friend back down to the pillow, where he lay breathing heavily, a sheen of perspiration standing out upon his forehead as he gripped my brother's arm with his other hand for a moment in silence.

Finally he looked down and experimentally flexed his fingers. "Not broken," he whispered, closing his eyes in exhaustion. "Just…sprained, perhaps…"

"His eyes are responding to light better, Sherlock, and his speech is not slurring. Probably only a minor concussion, if that," I said quietly in my brother's ear as he was about to shake the poor fellow awake again.

"Good," Sherlock breathed limply, rubbing the back of his wrist across his forehead in a nervous habit I had noticed long ago as a gesture of relief. "Watson," he went on, turning his attention to his friend.

"Mmm…"

The Doctor moaned, moving his head as my brother put a hand on his shoulder and, failing to rouse him, patted his face gently. "Watson, wake up. Come on, old fellow…that's it," he continued encouragingly as the man's eyes fluttered open tiredly once more. "Besides your arm, can you tell me if you've any other injuries?"

Watson waited, experimentally moving his arms and legs and shifting on the couch, and then running through a list of symptoms in his mind before re-opening his eyes and looking up at my brother. "My head…feels like I've been shot there," he muttered wryly as if realising the fact for the first time, moving his trembling hand to feel the side of his skull.

"You took a very bad fall on the ice," my brother responded softly.

"Now that…is a stunning deduction," the Doctor murmured, quirking a half a smile at Sherlock, the corner of his mouth twitching in mischief.

I chuckled and went for some antiseptic and basic supplies.

When I returned to the room, my brother had the Doctor resting comfortably against a few pillows, several warm blankets tucked in around him for the room had not yet warmed after the cold of the night had been let in in such a manner. It was the work of a few efficient minutes to have the poor fellow's head bandaged sufficiently, and then I aided Sherlock in fastening a sling around his friend's injured arm – the Doctor insisted it should be fine like that, no need to do ought else to it until morning, if then. I thought the Doctor to be completely unconscious by the time we had finished, for as Sherlock gently lowered his shoulders to the couch and then pulled the warmest blanket up round him, his eyes never opened though his features relaxed in a more peaceful expression and he sighed, unconsciously turning his head toward the sound of Sherlock's voice.

"There we are, old fellow," I overheard him murmur as he tucked the blanket in round him. "Do not worry about a thing, Watson – it's all right now."

My brother stood up a bit shakily and looked at me, the hard wrinkles of worry round his eyes dark and shadowed…and suddenly he looked so very, very young that before I realised what exactly I was doing I had both hands on his shoulders, steadying him without meaning to.

He shuddered under my grip and then slowly I felt the tension fade from his shoulders as he relaxed slightly. He glanced up at me in a tired, wry quirk of a grin.

"The most excitement you've had in months, I'll wager, brother mine," said he with a smirk.

"See that you do not make this a regular habit," I snorted, glaring at him only half-seriously.

He spared a glance at the peacefully resting figure on my couch and I felt a convulsive shiver pass through him. "No, I certainly shan't," he murmured fervently. Then he looked back at me, his normally iron eyes so uncertain and open and – yes, I would swear that he was – scared, that he looked for all the world like a child of nine again.

"Thank you, Mycroft," he muttered, casting down his gaze once more. "For…everything. I am sorry."

I sighed tolerantly, removing my hands from his shoulders and rubbing the crick in the back of my neck. "You should be."

He snorted, folding his arms and glaring at me with more of his old petulance – good, the new and novel ways in which he was behaving were slightly upsetting.

We both started when a weak chuckle of amusement sounded from the couch. Sherlock whirled round and I looked over his shoulder at the Doctor, who was grinning at us.

"If you've both finished spreading 'round the brotherly love, may I apologise for the trouble I've caused you, Mr. Holmes?" he asked, his voice weak but more steady than it had been an hour ago.

"You may, but it is not necessary, Doctor. It is not as if you could help it, other than to next time keep my infernal brother's long nose out of other people's business."

"I doubt I could manage that," he replied, shooting Sherlock a weak smirk. My brother snorted but could not repress his own smile at the sight of his friend looking a bit better than he had a while ago.

The clock chiming eleven jolted some sense back into my brain at last, and I turned to my brother.

"Now, Sherlock. I do have to be at Whitehall by half-past seven in the morning and so I shall bid you both goodnight. The bath is the third door on the left, Doctor. Sherlock, if you dare to touch anything in these rooms that does not belong to you then I shall personally see that you are required to attend the next Policemen's Benefit _with a female escort_. Is that clear?" I asked calmly.

My brother's face was now an interesting shade of magenta, and the Doctor was trying desperately not to burst out laughing, knowing the motion would hurt his aching head.

"If you must spend the night, what remains of it, then be quiet, Sherlock. Doctor, if you need anything, my brother knows where to find it and you may make him fetch it."

"Erm…I'm sure we shall be fine, thank you, sir," he muttered, hiding a grin behind the blanket he had pulled up to his nose.

"And one more thing," I added as I turned for my bedroom.

"Yes, brother _dear_," Sherlock hissed venomously.

"Doctor, for heaven's sake stop calling me 'sir'!"

I heard a stifled laugh from behind the blanket and Sherlock glared me into retreat, which I did with a weary tolerant sigh.

I supposed the only thing more childishly annoying than one younger brother would be _two_.


	17. Turn About Is Fair Play

**Title**: Turn About Is Fair Play  
**Characters**: Lestrade, Watson, Holmes  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 500  
**Warnings**: none  
**Summary**: For an LJ friend, with the prompt _Holmes in disguise, vexing Lestrade (or keeping him in the dark)._

* * *

Spring 1894 was a joyous time, despite the lingering reminders of my dear departed wife, due to the amazing events I have elsewhere recorded regarding the reappearance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. For weeks afterward we were practically inseparable, as if mutually reassuring ourselves that this wonderful possibility could indeed be reality.

But after a fortnight of Holmes's hanging about my consulting-room all hours of the evening, or my calling upon him the remaining hours, my emotionally-overwhelmed mind finally cried out for a return to what had been normality for three long years. So it was with great pleasure (and a bit of guilt, for I had sorely neglected all other friends in my euphoric delight) that I accepted a luncheon invitation from Inspector Lestrade one fine morning in early May.

We dined at a small café, and then spent a pleasant half-hour, which I began by apologizing for my remission in keeping in touch and he by assuring me he quite understood, in chatting amicably about one thing and another. We strolled leisurely in the park opposite the cafe, pleasantly peaceful until suddenly we were accosted by a ragged tramp, reeking of cheap gin and obviously not completely right in the head, who begged us to spare him a bit of change for a bite to eat.

I was about to give the man a shilling just to be rid of his pleading, when my mind unconsciously connected the loose threads that had been dangling enticingly in front of me, and a look at the beggar's ears confirmed my sudden suspicion. Honestly, had I not been trained by the man himself, I never should have believed he would be so petty – or jealous, apparently – to interrupt a quiet talk between friends.

Little had changed in three years, however; and among those things evidently was my utter inability to remain angry with the man for longer than ten seconds when he turned that particular wheedling look in my direction.

By the time I had silently agreed to his just-as-silent plea to not give him away, Lestrade had given the tramp a half-crown. The old fellow offered me a black-toothed smirk and turned to leave, but tripped over the stick I had calmly pushed out in front of me, just enough to make him stumble into me for a moment.

Glaring daggers, he finally shuffled off, muttering Egyptian curses under his stale breath.

"You are aware that that fellow was none other than Sherlock Holmes, spying on me," I drawled as we continued our stroll.

Lestrade's jaw bounced off his collar. "You cannot be serious…"

"Quite." I sighed tolerantly, though I would not apologise for the man being who he was.

Lestrade knew this already, and after spluttering for a moment subsided into rueful mumbling. "And I gave the man a half-a-crown!" he ended in a moan, shoulders slumping.

"Do not let that trouble you, Inspector," I replied, smiling, and reached into my pocket. "When I tripped him, I lifted his wallet."


	18. Rebuilding

**Title**: Rebuilding  
**Characters**: Watson, Lestrade, Holmes  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 4760  
**Warnings**: realism  
**Summary**: A more realistic look at an old plot bunny; namely, the time period immediately post-EMPT. Challenge 006 entry for the LJ community Watsons_Woes (required prompt line is italicized). The resurrection of an old enemy in addition to Holmes's own return forces a confrontation of issues among the three main players of the drama, and what needs to be said is. My attempt to explain the attitude change of and toward Inspector Lestrade from pre- to post-Hiatus.

* * *

Returning to consciousness after heavy sedation is, thankfully, not a sensation with which I have had much acquaintance. However, the few occasions on which I have been subjected for one reason or another to that strong of a drug, my opinion regarding the beneficial properties of such has become that much more compromised. The muddled dream-awareness swirling about in the mind, and the side effects of nausea, listlessness, and confusion, are sometimes not worth the release from the pain. This aversion is further intensified by the knowledge upon wakening that something must have occurred to occasion the administration of such a heavy sedative.

This instance was no exception to the rule, and I woke to a dull headache, the desire but temporary inability to open my eyes, a general feeling of badly-masked pain, and absolutely no recollection of what had occurred to place me in such a position. The opening of my eyes yielded only a hazy approximation of the brightly-lit room, but after multiple desperate blinks the blur dissipated, and I was relieved to find my vision relatively unimpaired, and the view of a white ceiling completely uninteresting.

Auditory awareness returned in increments a moment later, and with it the familiar sounds of a well-functional hospital, as well as a voice close by my aching head.

"…awake, then, Doctor?" it was speaking, slowly and clearly.

Not Holmes's voice, either. Somehow I had expected it to be, but it was far too gentle, and too openly sad, to be so. I attempted to turn my head toward it, and instantly decided that was a very poor choice of actions when pain flared up along my neck and the back of my skull. Whatever had happened to me, moving was, while possible, not the most intelligent option at the moment.

I clenched my eyes to allow my vision to uncloud again, and heard the shifting of a chair and two light footsteps. Upon opening them again, I perceived a familiar figure standing within my visual range, and tried (albeit feebly) to think why he would be here.

"Ah, there you are, Doctor," said he, the tense lines framing the corners of his eyes fading minutely when I inclined an eyebrow to show I recognised him. "I would advise against your moving much for a little while."

I nodded, cautiously, and cleared my throat in preparation to voicing one of a thousand questions. The first attempt an instant later was no more than a harsh, disused croak, but finally I managed to at least cough out an intelligible greeting.

Lestrade's eyes brightened when he heard it, though even in my less-than-alert state I could discern they were still dark (even for him) with some elusive emotion. He perched hesitantly upon the very edge of my bed, as if awkwardly attempting to keep as far from me as possible but still not force me to move my head. "How are you feeling?" he asked conversationally.

For the last few moments I had been fuzzily attempting to categorize the various indications my body was sending me regarding my state of health, the chiefest of which was a dull pounding in my head and another in my shoulder, along with various other smaller aches – which would probably be much worse without the sedative I obviously had been under for heaven knew how long. "Well enough," I rasped after these conclusions, and the official blinked and then grinned knowingly.

The awkward ice melted with the warmth of the gesture, and I returned it; for whatever had happened, it was obviously going to be fine. Lestrade had been a good friend when I most needed one of late, and if Holmes could not be here there was no one I would rather have to explain to me what had transpired.

"I hope that is not the advice you give to your patients, that they are well enough when they have several weeks' recovery ahead of them," he replied in good-natured sternness as I winced while trying to move my arms.

"Considering that lately many of my 'patients' are bodies in your police-morgue, I daresay they are as well as can be," I retorted with less force than I had thought I might (how weak my voice was!), and tested to see if it hurt to shift my head on the pillow as much as it had at first.

It did. I desisted, and inquired instead as to what had happened to place me here.

The Inspector's face grew a shade paler, two shades tenser, and his voice strained, brittle as parchment and just as thin. "Don't you remember anything?"

I frowned; thinking was growing easier to accomplish now, more like wading through morning fog instead of a mudslide. "Just…there was a house, condemned," I mused, "and…a man, I can't remember who he was…" The niggling worry that had been picking at the back of my mind surfaced suddenly, and I looked up. "Lestrade, where is Holmes?"

The Inspector must have perceived my rising distress at his hesitation, for he lost no time in assuring me that my friend was perfectly safe, unharmed, and probably would be seeing me soon. Partially unconvinced, and unwilling to continue sifting through a storm-cloud of vague recollections, I insisted upon the full story.

Lestrade picked at a loose thread from the cheap but spotless bed-sheets, and after a few seconds of throat-clearing and muttering to himself, began.

--

"Inspector."

He barely returned the nod of greeting, and entombed his hands in his pockets against the bitter wind. Squinting up at the broken windows of the ancient structure, he could see nothing save decades' worth of grime and soot. "Details, Sergeant. Why the devil is the man in there, anyway, and why would he take a hostage if he's nothing to gain by it?"

"I don't think he went in there to take a hostage, Inspector," the young man replied, indicating a knot of straggling unfortunates huddled against a nearby pile of debris and unidentifiable filth. "All these places are deserted – condemned – and only a few scattered of these homeless people sleep there o' nights. The doctor went in willingly enough, according to those folks who ran out when the fellow pulled a gun a minute later and told 'em to."

What little he'd eaten for lunch suddenly froze into a chunk of ice needling the pit of his stomach. "The civilian is a doctor?"

"Aye, sir." Smythers's eyes had assumed the shape and diameter of cricket-balls. "Never met the man m'self, but Constable Bolton says it's the police-surgeon who just resigned last week – Inspector?"

Swearing didn't change the situation any, but it cut down on the opportunity to moan. "Has anyone sent for Sherlock Holmes yet?" he asked from behind his hand, watching the silent building opposite. The structure swayed before the arrival of a rain-scented wind, creaking ominously.

"Ten minutes ago, Inspector Lestrade," a uniformed bobby called from where he'd been standing at a respectful (and safe) distance. "Constable Gerald Bolton, sir –"

"Dispense with the formalities, Constable." Walking to the edge of the litter-strewn pavement, he peered across the street. Silence – dead silence – was never a good sign in a hostage situation. "Do we know who we're dealing with?"

"Aye, sir," Smythers replied immediately, eager to show his efforts to his superiour. "D'you remember Jack Anderson?"

--

I blinked, squinting as the evening sunset-light invaded the room. Lestrade left my bed momentarily to close the blinds, and returned as I finally recalled the name from the morass that was my mind at the moment. "I remember," I murmured. "I did not recognise him…"

"Small wonder, too, Doctor," Lestrade replied, an undercurrent of fire warming his voice. "Three years in asylum changed him a good deal. You are not to blame. I assume he came to your practice with some story about a patient in that area needing a physician? And you followed him, not knowing who he was until he drew a weapon on you?"

Too weak to further elaborate, I simply nodded, and the official sighed. "We should have known he might come after you, Doctor, but the reports all said that he had been deemed sane and –"

"Lestrade," I interrupted, managing a tiny smile despite the pain sharpening its blade on my shoulder and ribcage, "you are not to blame."

My throwing of his own words back into his face brought a tiny smile to his eyes, though it petered out before it could reach his thinned lips. "Be that as it may, we wasted precious time trying to decide how to approach a madman, when we could not get him to respond to our shouts."

"What finally happened?"

Lestrade winced, as if Memory were striking him with a physical barrage. "The tenement was condemned, as you said, Doctor." At my perplexed look, the man's voice trickled into a pained growl that sent the water-glass beside my bed shivering. "When he fired that old revolver, he brought most of the house down around both of you. He's dead, Watson."

I absorbed this information as rapidly as my muddled senses could comprehend, and then blinked back up at him. "Dead?"

"The house collapsed entirely," he answered, and I did not miss the fact that his hand twitched upon the coverlet, like an overturned beetle. "When it went down we all thought –" He swallowed, throat working spasmodically, and finally looked me directly in the eye. "I'll never forget Mr. Holmes's face when the second story began to fall."

I closed my eyes for a moment, for I did not want to imagine. That did not answer the question of why my friend was not at my side, however; even his undemonstrative nature had never before prevented him from being present when I awoke on the few times I had been ill or injured during our association – and once he had even come to visit me at home when I'd been laid up with a sprained ankle, one winter during my marriage. Something was not right.

"Why isn't he here?" I asked finally, my voice smaller than I had anticipated it being. The pain was flaring anew in my head with the return of inquisitive thought processes, but I paid no heed.

"Probably because _I_ am," Lestrade answered dully, dropping his gaze.

"Inspector?"

"We…had an altercation, Doctor." The official sighed, a dismal and hopeless exhalation. "A heated one."

I raised an eyebrow, and for the first time felt bandaging encircling my head; it tingled and itched infernally. Judging from similar discomfort coming from my chest and shoulders, they were probably wrapped in the same.

Patience has always been one of my strongest virtues, and it won over Lestrade's obvious reluctance to discuss the matter, for he resumed his tale shortly. "In our defenses, neither of us were quite in a courteous frame of mind by the time he got to the scene…"

--

"So help me, Mr. Holmes, I shall have you forcibly detained in a police-wagon if you do not calm down and let us _think_ for a moment!"

Properly abashed, the amateur relinquished the Inspector's arm with the minimum apologia necessary to avoid a social _faux pas_, and stepped back, folding his arms and scowling black as an overcast midnight in January. As if summoned to support the cast and the mood of the terrible drama being enacted on this sordid stage, grey-blue storm clouds had been materializing overhead and now threatened those below with a warning snarl.

"Inspector, who is this Anderson?" Holmes snapped, sending two nearby constables to scuttling slowly away from the shelter of Lestrade's buffer. They'd take their chances with the approaching lightning rather than bear the brunt of Baker Street's pride and joy when the man was either in a temper or worried – or worse, both.

Lestrade waved a hand impatiently, never noticing that the gesture was oddly similar to Holmes's own regal beckoning. "An armed robber, Mr. Holmes, from a few years back; just after your _death_, actually." The icy emphasis was not lost on London's keenest observer, but he let it pass in favour of finding the facts _sans_ obscure and irrelevant details. "The Moriarty trials dragged on for weeks, months even, and this fellow was key in obstructing the justice we were trying to deal out to the remaining members of the gang."

"Why the _devil_ then is he not in prison?" Holmes demanded hotly, for he had been much put-out at the time by how his pet scheme had not worked nearly as well as he had anticipated.

"He was deemed insane." Thunder boomed overhead, and a drizzle began to whip at their faces, silencing almost all sounds in the vicinity. A palling cloud of vapour drifted past and wrapped its icy grip around their throats. "He broke into the Doctor's house, trying to find information that someone, somewhere, evidently thought the man possessed about the gang, something that would aid in their conviction. Watson overpowered him, called the police, he was convicted and condemned to spend his sentence being treated in an asylum for mild fixations, and we thought the matter settled."

"Until now."

The official did not deign to comment on the obvious barb, but forged onward resolutely. "He was released from asylum last week."

Holmes flipped the lapels of his coat up to shield his thin neck, and sent a glare ominously toward the clouds, daring them at their peril to continue drenching him. "I should think he would come after _me_ then, with my recent return to London spread about in the papers as it is."

"_He didn't want you, he wanted the Doctor_," Lestrade growled. "_Watson's_ testimony sent him to prison, and in his eyes _Watson_ prevented him from getting whatever information Anderson thought he possessed."

For some reason the statement, uttered placidly enough, raised Holmes's defensive shields, and he somehow felt the need to defend himself against an invisible accusation.

"I had told him nothing, for his own safety," he explained with that hauteur that only that fraction of the populace bearing the title of _genius_ know how to employ without being openly indecorous. "He knew nothing of the gang until I came to him that last evening, and never learned more save that I had left evidence in Baker Street. I was protecting him and his wife."

"Yes, and we all know what a _stunning_ job you did of protecting him for three years."

Sergeant Smythers wisely took himself off to prevent being impaled by sudden flying icicles.

One would think it impossible to speak through tightly compressed lips, but somehow Holmes managed it. "I _beg_ your pardon?"

Lestrade silenced the other with an ignoring gesture, as the house across the street moaned and shifted portentously in the gusts of rain-breeze. "We don't have time for this." He turned to move closer to the eerily silent scene, now that the rain and darkness was giving them some cover.

He found his path blocked by a towering six feet of incensed amateur consultant.

--

Dusk had drifted in from the Thames, and the golden glow of sunlight had faded to a dark pink haze behind the blinds. Lestrade paused in his narrative, obviously reluctant to go on.

I sighed, twisting to a more comfortable position and then biting down on an outcry as my right shoulder screamed a protest; now I remembered the dark house, Anderson…the gun…the shot fired just before the ceiling timbers began to rain down on our heads...

My gasp was audible enough, for the Inspector glanced back up hurriedly, his eyes contracting in concern. "Doctor?"

"I…am fine," I murmured, permitting my head to slump limply against the cool pillow. "I remember more now. Pray continue, Inspector."

Lestrade shrugged one-shoulderedly, tapping a finger against the seam of the coverlet. "We had words; not many, we didn't have time for that, obviously." The forced smile died painfully before it had been fully birthed, and he fell silent for a moment. "But…we were still at it when the shot was fired, and the building began to implode."

I winced, and he nodded; no further words were truly necessary on the subject. Wearily picking a small string off the spotless sheets and balling it up between his thumb and forefinger, he continued after a small silence. "He wanted to go in the back way and see if he could talk to Anderson alone –"

"Anderson would have shot him on sight, and probably me as well," I interjected.

"I knew that, Doctor. However…that is not the reason I gave for not allowing him to do it," the Inspector confessed, somewhat shamefaced.

My curiousity at this point was far outweighing the pain from my injuries, whatever they might be, and I wished to know the truth before I slipped back into that semi-conscious haze I had been swimming through at first.

"No? What, then, Lestrade?"

--

"You will do no such thing, Mr. Holmes!"

"And whyever not, Inspector?" The amateur's hiss was equaled by the force behind dashing rain from his eyes, angry gestures spelling Painful Doom for whoever dreamt of crossing him.

There was nothing for it but the truth, then. "Because we have gotten along deucedly well for the last three years _without_ your interference. The Doctor is one of us now, and I'll not see _you_ making any more decisions about what is the best thing for his safety!"

The detective froze, drawn up to his full stiff height and with eyes locked on his smaller target and the man's stubborn defiance that had cowed many stronger and larger than Holmes himself. "What?" he breathed dangerously.

"This is a police matter, Mr. Holmes," the official snapped, now at the end of his tether and about to choke to death. "And you will allow the police to handle it, is that clear? We have gotten the Doctor out of worse situations than this in the last three years, without your help – he's done the same by us too, by the way – and we will handle this one as well, _without your help_. You are not needed nor wanted at the moment, Mr. Holmes!"

He'd of course expected indignation, icy rage, or possibly verbal abuse. What he had never dreamed to see would be hurt, flashing so quickly across the amateur's face that he would have missed it had they not been in such close proximity. Hurt, and grief too – as if the man had already known in his heart what had just been verbalized, and was hoping no one else felt the same.

After one piercing look Sherlock Holmes turned on his heel and moved, in a slow shamble that in any other man would be called utter dejection, back toward the other side of the alley. Staring, slack-jawed, Lestrade had barely time to marvel that the man had actually obeyed, an unheard-of occurrence and one for the history case-books.

And then a rumble, not of thunder, shook the cobblestones as the house across the street began to shiver and then collapse in a hail of timber and slate.

He would never forget Holmes's terrified shout shattering the darkness.

--

While he had been talking, Lestrade had lit the gas, for darkness was falling fast upon the city and, thereby, our conference. The comforting glow banished the temporary chill that had rippled down my spine at his words, though Holmes's absence was becoming more understandable but more glaring as the moments passed.

"Lestrade," I spoke softly when the man had sat in morose silence long enough that I grew restless, "pensiveness does not become you, my dear fellow."

"How could you do it, Doctor?" he asked, carefully inspecting the cracks in the flooring.

Puzzled, I frowned. "Do what?"

"Forgive him, for what he did – how long he let you think he was dead?"

I opened my mouth in some surprise, but he was already continuing, the words falling with almost rehearsed rapidity, as if having already been thought of multiple times over the last few weeks.

"When I remember meeting you at the station when you returned from Switzerland…the trial of the gang – you couldn't even legally testify, Doctor!...the newspapers hounding you for months…never finding a body…and everything else," he carefully avoided mentioning my most painful loss, "I cannot fathom how you could simply allow the man to waltz back into your life as he has, easy as you please!"

I smiled, somewhat sadly. "Lestrade, your…concern for my state of mental health is gratifying," I answered, carefully measuring my words now (as much as was possible, when my head still refused to remain in one place for long). "But what then would you have me do? Reject his friendship? Demand retribution for three years of torture he had no idea he was inflicting? Do you feel so strongly about the matter, that you would see him more pained than he already is about the choices he made? Or perhaps you wish he had never returned?"

"Of course not, Doctor!" The official shot off my bed like a racehorse from a starting-gate, and began pacing furiously in an ever-widening circle. "Lord knows I'm more glad to see him than anyone else – except you, of course," he added, and I smiled thinly. "I suppose…I simply haven't got used to the idea of working with him again, or of – well, of trusting him, quite."

"Do you think I have?" I posed the question quietly, but sincerely, and he halted in his tracks to stare at me.

"Haven't you?"

"No, not entirely," I admitted; and I did feel guilt a-plenty about the matter. Surely the true meaning of friendship was an unwavering trust? However, I could not change the wariness I felt now toward my recently-returned comrade. "But I shall, in time," I continued, smiling at the beautiful thought that I now had all the time in the world to re-learn. "And so will you, Inspector."

"I just do not want him to –" My colleague cut himself off, swallowing the rest of the sentence in a harsh gulp, but after three years of a steadily increasing friendship I knew exactly what the real trouble was. He was furious with Holmes; not for disappearing for three years, but for not telling me he was alive – for harming _me_ in the process, however unintentional it had been.

I smiled, and reached a hand from the covers toward the distraught official. "You just don't want him to hurt me again, is that it? It is much easier to forgive an injustice dealt to one's self, than to do so with one dealt to a friend."

"I…well…yes, if you put it that way, Doctor," he finally sighed.

"Then that is one area, at least, upon which we wholly agree, Inspector," came a subdued voice from the doorway.

Having seen Sherlock Holmes standing there a good two or three minutes ago, I tried not to laugh, and indeed was rather too weak to, as Lestrade jumped at least a foot into the air, whirling around with a face that was a regular study in scarlet.

"How long –"

"Long enough," he answered, and shuffled sadly in the doorway; hesitating, almost afraid to enter.

"Holmes," I whispered, and that was all the permission he required, apparently. In two long steps he was at my side, rambling half-coherently about some triviality while he scanned me, eyes alight.

As he bent low over my head, I saw the fear in his features had softened into something more, and his soft exhalation of relief upon seeing me at least semi-coherent was loud as an explosion in the darkling silence of the room.

"I am glad to see you awake, my dear fellow," he murmured, absently straightening the tangled sheet over my bandaged shoulder – if the throbbing there were an indication, Anderson's bullet had not entirely missed – and then moving to examine the wrappings upon my head. "I will not deny you frightened us – me – quite badly for several days."

"Days?" I wondered aloud, frowning in concentration as I tried to make sense of the entire mess. It appeared that my mind was, in the aftermath of conversation, returning to that murky haze it had been in before I had awakened; thinking clearly was growing more difficult.

"_Four_ days," Lestrade interjected matter-of-factly.

I felt my eyes widen, and I searched Holmes's face for confirmation. Nodding, he exhaled in a shudder. "It was nearly twelve hours before – before it was safe enough for them to allow me to search for you," he added in a whisper so small I knew none but I could hear the agony locked deep within it.

I was about to reply, when at a soft sound behind us his head whipped around in one of those familiar rapid gestures. This time, however, his voice was tinged with despondency when he spoke again. "Inspector, pray do not leave. I shall only be a moment, and then will leave you to the conversation I interrupted just now."

Lestrade paused in obvious surprise, already nearly to the door, and turned to look at us. "Mr. Holmes?"

I felt my friend's hand gently pressure my uninjured shoulder, and then he moved across the room. "Inspector," I heard him state in that intense, direct fashion that sometimes overtook his more placid speech patterns in times of mental stress, "I can offer you only apologies for the past, no promises for the future. No, pray allow me to finish, please," he added, when the man would have politely stayed the conversation. "I cannot and never will blame you for not trusting me, Lestrade. But I can give you no more than a vow to attempt my best at rebuilding what I have damaged in the last three years."

"A handsome apology, Mr. Holmes," I heard the sincere response a moment later, and turned my head to see Lestrade relaxing visibly, the tension falling off his shoulders like a cloak discarded to the floor. "And gladly accepted. Thank you, sir."

I felt rather than saw the sudden blossoming of a warm smile across my friend's morose features. Smiling myself, I closed my eyes for a few moments, for I could not recall being quite so weak and tired in a very long time.

I heard quiet footsteps approaching my bed again, and sleepily re-opened my eyes halfway, turning my face toward the figure hovering fuzzily overhead.

"It is all right, Watson. Rest now, and we shall talk tomorrow," Holmes murmured, laying a hand on my bandaged one where it rested outside the coverlet. "Good-night, my dear fellow."

I managed a drowsy smile in what I hoped was his direction, and let my eyes drift closed once more.

"You needn't leave, you know," I heard Lestrade from nearby as my friend's hand withdrew reluctantly.

Silence for a moment. Then, slowly, "I've no intention of –"

"You aren't."

"…Are you certain?"

"Quite."

More silence.

"Well, if you are going to spend the night in simply _staring_ at me, then go ahead and _leave_, Mr. Holmes. Otherwise, I would suggest you remove yourself to that chair."

I dimly heard a small bark of laughter, and the screaking of wood on tiled flooring. The radiance of gaslight against my eyelids simmered down into a soothing glow, and then the sound of chair-groans close by lent their voices to the somnolent sounds of an April night.

Then silence, for several seconds. I had nearly drifted off into a dreamy sleep when the sound of squirming reeled me back momentarily.

"Inspector…thank you," Holmes whispered, almost noiselessly so as to not disturb me.

"For…?"

Heartfelt sadness was evident in his voice. "Being there for him…when I was not."

"Mm." Creaking as the man obviously leaned back in his chair, and a lowered voice. "I warn you I've no intention of stopping, just because you cropped back up into his life."

"You make me sound like a case of chronic malaria, or a recurring strain of virus."

The grin in the official's voice was as evident as Holmes's had been in the quip. "You said it, not I. But I mean it, sir; I truly do."

"I am counting upon it, Inspector."

A small, satisfied chuckle. "I believe, Mr. Holmes, that we are finally beginning to understand one another."

Holmes's snort and "Do not bank on it" were the last indications I heard before I was content to leave them to their night – and those many subsequent evenings, in the coming years – of quiet conversation.


	19. A Thread of Hope

**Title**: A Thread of Hope  
**Author**: KCS  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 1229  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Warnings**: Mentions of war and all its consequences, including a thoughtful - but not depressing - overtone. Very rough writing, as I've not written Holmes fic in probably three months and this was written in a bit of a hurry because of a LiveJournal challenge deadline.  
**Summary**: One late night in early 1919, Holmes reflects upon the consequences of the Great War, and does something absurdly simple to help one particular soldier. Challenge 008 fic, using **Fear **and **Voices**.

* * *

_Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,_ so Shakespeare the bard had not seen the horrors the world would bring upon itself in coming centuries; had not lived through a worldwide blood-lust; had not spent four years of living Hell, on a battlefield or off, fighting for one or hundreds of lives; had not emerged from the Great War helplessly unable to reacclimatize to a life devoid of machine guns and poison gas, trenches and white crosses.

Had not been forced to watch all this and more happen to a friend, and be powerless to prevent it or even impede its progress.

I sit here now, my dear fellow, although you are not aware of it, and marvel at the benevolence of Providence, to spare you the fate of so many thousands of others. What have I done, to deserve your safe – and relatively whole – return from such a conflict as this has been? Surely nothing I have accomplished would merit such a boon, and I can only assume that my gratitude is merely a pleasant side-effect; the real reason can only be your innate goodness, that pure soul shining within you, that so few men are fortunate enough to possess or even meet in their lifetimes. A romantic sentiment, to be sure, but one worthy of you and your talents of word-crafting, Doctor mine.

But even you have not escaped unscathed, dear Watson. Even now, I can see you are troubled, restless…murmuring names I cannot quite distinguish and probably would not recognize if I could properly hear them. How much death must one man endure, until Fate has decided it is enough and prevents the visions continuing in the world of dreams?

The names are clearer now, but as I had suspected I do not recognize any but one – the young man you introduced me to when you landed – and I am forced to wonder how many of those names have been reduced in the name of history to no more than a small white cross on a Flanders field, and a half-nightmared memory in the mind of one weary RAMC ambulance driver.

Injustice is one part of life's cruelty that I have never been able to stomach, and mine is churning now with the realization of what these five years have done to you, my dear fellow. One war in a lifetime is enough for any man; two is unthinkable, unconscionable – and yet I know you would have done nothing differently, even knowing the outcome. Such is my Watson, and though I abhor the effects of this conflict I would have your sterling character to be no other way, dear chap.

However, I can no longer ignore your distress, and at the risk of wakening you – already such a light sleeper, and since your return you have been waking every ten minutes thinking that the world is about to explode around you – I move my chair closer, holding my breath as the chair-legs squeak softly on the polished wood of my spare bedroom's floor.

But you are sufficiently enwrapped in your memories, and remain totally unaware of my presence – as you have the last four nights; I wonder if I shall ever tell you? – or my hand as it slides noiselessly under your own, resting on the cool sheets. For a moment you still, and I wonder if I have awakened you, but then you move restlessly into a different position, turning your face toward my voice as I murmur some inane platitude of attempted comfort, not caring about the words but only that they make it through to your unconscious mind to banish whatever is disturbing you so.

I quiet in degrees as you do, until silence reigns again in the chamber I have already begun to call yours, despite that you have not officially moved to share this cottage with me. And for a few peaceful minutes I allow the faint hope that the rest of the night you shall, for the first time since your return, sleep it through without waking yourself and me with your crying over the men you could not save – or worse, those you did who then returned to battle and forced you to repeat the process the next day or week or month.

But despite my hopes it is not to be, for after only a few minutes you are agitated again, this time plaintively asking questions I either do not understand or cannot answer, much as I would give anything or everything I possess to be capable of putting your mind at peace.

I continue to speak, but I doubt you can hear more than a dull murmur you recognize instinctively to be my voice. I was greatly relieved to find that the loss of hearing was in all likelihood temporary, and I am aware I should be grateful that it was no worse – but yet, it makes communication on any level, waking or sleeping, more of a trial to us both than is good for my impatience and your understandably shattered nerves.

Those nerves are now frayed nearly beyond the point of repair, though you have assured me that time and peace will be enough to weave them back into the protective tapestry with which you always shielded me and anyone else under your care throughout the years. My dear fellow, if you would only have extended to yourself the same amount of protection! I am woefully incapable of returning the gesture in the degree it was offered, and even now have no conception of what I am capable of doing to aid you.

And yet I must try, for your sake, even if I do no more than embarrass myself and humiliate you in trying. Still I hesitate, unwilling to compromise your pride if you are to awaken, but when I hear my own name among those of your fallen comrades, and your face twists in a spasm of pure grief and terror, I can no longer hesitate. Taking your hand firmly in mine, for if you cannot hear me surely you can feel my touch, I pressure it gently, with a murmured reassurance that all is well (as well as it can be in these circumstances, at any rate).

To my surprise, you do not awake nor pull away, but in unconsciousness cling to me as tightly as a drowning man to a life-preserver; and even as I watch, the faint traces of tears seep out and silently dampen the pillow beneath your head. The addition of my free arm across your quivering shoulders apparently serves to calm you at long last; and after a moment of tension you breathe a tremulous sigh, curling up on your side around our trapped hands, and lie quietly.

I do not dare move, and barely venture to breathe, until the dawn of a fresh, silently peaceful day begins to brush an iced-rosy glow around the edges of the blinds. I am grateful for many things this morning, one of the chiefest of which is that I can no longer hear the sound of guns and mortars carry from across the Channel.

The second of which, is that when you awake you smile at me for the first time in five days; and I know we – and the world – will put ourselves back together, someday.


	20. Daydreams

**Title**: Daydreams  
**Characters**: Holmes (Watson, sort of)  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 2723  
**Summary**: One of my Haiti charity fic offers, this one for **paxieamor** . So sorry it took so long, but the muse would not cooperate until today! Prompt was _"In the days before "EMPT", Sherlock Holmes prepares for his return to the land of the living and tries to think of what to say to his best friend." _**also, **_Holmes and Watson friendship cuteness and maybe a random dog that follows Holmes around_.

Hope you like, Pax! And sorry again about the delay. :(

* * *

London had never looked so lovely. He abhorred romantic poeticism with every fibre of his Bohemian soul, but even he could not deny it was the only perfect description of the city at that moment – his city, his London, that he had seen only in wistful longing dreams for over two years. He stepped onto the worn platform of Victorian station, carpetbag in hand and a genuine smile upon his face, amid a swirling cloud of yellowish-grey fog, which billowed outward before him and closed in behind in its inimical fashion.

The ride to Baker Street was pleasantly uneventful; there were no more worries of being hunted for the only crime of being on the correct side of the law, no vengeful men after his blood and all he held dear, and best of all – no more need for deception. Even the best of actors grows weary of living a lie, and he had done so for far too long, with consequences he was too caught-up in the euphoria of homecoming to ponder yet.

His telegram had been received, and Mrs. Hudson was half-beside herself with crying and laughing, having the door open before he even alighted from the cab and chattering a kilometre a minute while he removed his hat and hung it on the peg for the first time in so long. Before he could fully answer the questions being put to him (admittedly, he thought with no real expectation of answers right this moment), he was being pushed up the seventeen steps with more force than he remembered the dear woman being capable of employing.

"Is he…" he began, hesitating just before the closed sitting room door.

"He's been waiting for two hours, though after as many years I doubt that was much further sacrifice," Mrs. Hudson retorted, tsk-ing pointedly in the back of her throat. "Now go on." A warm smile, and a nudge toward the motionless brass knob, inviting him to open the door on a new chapter of his life.

After a long moment of hesitation, he finally entered, timid and more worried about his reception than he had ever been.

He need not have been concerned, for he was fairly pounced upon before he could even take three steps into the well-remembered room…

* * *

No, that simply would not do, he decided. A mere telegram would never be sufficient to fully inform the parties involved of his survival. Besides which, such an impersonal method of communication as a wire to either his longsuffering landlady or his more longsuffering friend would be the height of calumny after such a long deception. Even he was not so foolish as to test the limits of friendship and affection in such a brazenly care-less manner.

In addition, such a mundane return – surely he, Sherlock Holmes, could think of something slightly more dramatic than that? He was, after all, a performer at heart; and this was his chance of a lifetime to make a grand entrance back onto the stage of life; a chance for an encore, returning from the very grave, that no mortal before him had ever had the chance to do. His name had been a household word, and to return to the scene in such a prosaic fashion…no, it would not do. A simple telegram was far too ordinary for such an occasion.

What then?

* * *

_Dr. Watson,_

_I have a matter of some importance and urgency regarding my late brother, which I must discuss with you at your earliest convenience, if not before. Would 8:00 this evening, at the Diogenes, be amenable to your schedule? It is, as I said, something of a minor emergency._

_Regards,_  
_Mycroft Holmes_

Short, simple, and brooking no real possibility of argument though the doctor hardly had reason to decline the summons. Mycroft Holmes had been kind enough to acknowledge his 'busy schedule', and more kind to not point out that said schedule was so filled solely for the purpose of filling his waking hours with activities that would not leave him alone with his thoughts.

The Diogenes Club was a peaceful atmosphere, if somewhat stolid, and its reassuring calm did much to quiet the unease Watson felt lurking in the back of his mind as he entered and handed his outerwear to the footman. He was shown to the Strangers' Room, and left there alone while Mr. Holmes was summoned.

The lavish furnishings and ornate fireplace, where a modest blaze had been kindled to warm the room on this cold winter night, had not changed in the years between his last visit and this one; he could still vividly remember their acquaintance and aid of Mr. Melas, the Greek interpreter. A small, sad smile formed in his eyes but did not reach his lips, as he moved listlessly to the window and stood beside the seats there, remembering the two most brilliant minds ever to grace the Club conversing and correcting each other on that afternoon long before…it seemed like decades, though it had only been less than six years.

Behind him, the massive doors creaked to herald the elder – only remaining – Holmes's arrival, and he turned, squaring his shoulders for whatever the man might have to say about his late brother's effects; possibly Mycroft was going to inform him that he was having Baker Street shut down and sold at last, or some such?

Mycroft Holmes stepped through the doors, his large bulk filling the entryway and his fleshy face splotched with annoyance. "Doctor, I wish to iterate now that I had absolutely no hand in this…_debacle_, nor do I approve of the method in which it is being enacted," he growled crossly, meeting the physician's puzzled look with one of reluctant sympathy.

"I…don't follow you, sir," Watson replied, mystified.

"Then pray allow me to make it clearer?"

A higher, more strident voice fairly bursting with nervous energy rang out merrily behind the larger man, and at the sound of it the color drained quite suddenly from the doctor's face, leaving him a sickly shade of paper.

"What…" the doctor murmured faintly as a second figure slipped past his cranky elder and entered, leaning jauntily against the opposite door-jamb. "I…"

"Sherlock!"

"Hold up, old fellow!" the younger man exclaimed, jumping forward as his friend swayed unsteadily, eyes unfocussed. "Perhaps you had better sit down, my dear Watson, before you fall in the fire…there we are." Settling the man into the closest chair, he shook the doctor gently. "Watson, can you hear me?"

"I told you this was a foolish, puerile, _juvenile_, and entirely _ridiculous_ idea, Sherlock," Mycroft growled, ringing for a steward and sending the poor young man scurrying for strong tea with one crisply snapped order.

* * *

He shook his head in frustration, absently doodling on the margins of the French newspaper. No, that would not do either; it was sufficiently dramatic, but to play such a trick upon his friend in such unfamiliar settings would not be ideal.

Moreover, Mycroft likely would nip any such plans in the bud; brother dear could be as protective over Watson as he was himself, and would in all probability throw his baby brother out of his rooms were he to suggest such a melodrama be played in the sanctity of his precious Diogenes.

A small nudge at his trouser leg broke the train of his thoughts. Glancing down, he smiled thinly and patted the little mongrel upon the head as it whined inquiringly. The pup had nearly been run over by a carriage a week ago Saturday, just outside his home, and rather than condemning the little blighter to its former life of foraging he had unaccountably taken it into his villa for the night. A serious miscalculation, as he soon discovered Said night had turned into another, and two more, and last evening when he had tried to boot the obnoxious little beggar out it only sat upon his doorstep and cried all night, howling miserably until his neighbours complained in their most colourful French invectives.

The mongrel had stayed inside after that, though he would not permit it anywhere near his laboratory or his bedroom. He had in a bizarre fit of humor christened it _Tobi_, for it was nearly as ugly as the blessed beast he employed occasionally in London and just as adept at responding to him. Now the dog seemed to sense that he was in a quandary, and scratched quizzically at his trouser leg, head cocked to one side.

"You know I cannot take you with me when I go back," he informed the little thing quite seriously. "Unless Mrs. Hudson were willing to keep you downstairs; I won't have another dog cluttering up the sitting room, and besides Watson would feed you scraps until you nearly exploded."

Tobi looked entirely unconcerned with this scenario, and only snorted before lying down with his head and one floppy ear spread over the detective's – no, he was that no longer, only a wanderer, a vagabond – over his house slipper.

He resumed his musing, absently dissecting the personal section of the newspaper as he did, marking the personals which were sinister in nature and correcting the spelling of several cheaply-done advertisements; it had not taken him long to brush up his French, but he did intend to keep the language fluent so as to not give himself away to anyone this late in the game…a game that was nearly over, thank heaven.

But what to do when it was?

Perhaps a letter, a harbinger of his impending arrival?

* * *

_My Dear Watson,_

_I pray you, initially, to not immediately dispose of this letter as a forgery, for I assure you it is nothing of the kind. I am aware that you and the world have presumed me dead for three years, and believe me when I say that the deception was entirely necessary, if regrettable for both you and anyone else I am fortunate enough to call my admittedly tiny circle of friends and acquaintances._

_But allow me to lay the facts before you as they occurred, my dear fellow, and at their conclusion then you may make your own judgment on the matter, and I will abide by your wishes at that time. Until then, let me begin by…_

Return correspondence had been impossible, and he knew it; he would not know if he had been forgiven, or at least given a second chance to explain, until he reached London. The journey seemed to be taking twice the length he remembered it to, though a quick consultation of the telegraph wires and his pocket-watch assured him that their speed was perfectly typical for this time of day and weather.

Still, he had never enjoyed waiting.

And especially this sort of waiting. He was accustomed to having patience during his cases – a lying in wait for a burglar, or playing the game quietly and surreptitiously until the criminal finally slipped and showed his hand. He also had learnt the hard way, living with an Afghan veteran at the inception of their association, that patience in winning the man over was the only way in which he could get the introverted fellow to respond to his questions, and not just about the war.

But waiting to know, once he stepped onto the railway platform, if there would be anyone to meet him – he was not hoping for Watson, for he would not blame the man for never wanting to see him again, but perhaps his brother or one of the Scotland Yard men? Possibly? – that kind of waiting was painful in its intensity. Not knowing, he had always maintained, was far worse than knowing the worst.

The warning whistle blew, and he retrieved his carpetbag from the rack. Tobi raised his head, ears pricked up and dark eyes following his movements.

"If there is anyone there to meet me, I do not wish to see you chewing on his ankles, do you hear me?" he asked severely, pointing a thin finger at the dog.

The mongrel whuffed, as if completely disregarding his orders, and he scowled, in desperation attempting to not give in to the nervousness – he, Sherlock Holmes, nervous! Unthinkable! – that was beginning to crawl up the passage from his stomach to his throat.

The train slowed…stopped…the doors opened. Gathering up Tobi's leash in one hand and his bag in the other, he forced his reluctant feet down to the platform, avoiding being knocked over by hurrying passengers eager to make the cab-line.

For a moment he stood as the crowd dissipated, looking about in the mist for a sight of anything – anyone – familiar, and trying desperately not to feel so utterly lost.

But the platform gradually emptied around him, and he was left with a whining puppy sitting on his foot, disliking the unfamiliar surroundings.

After a moment, he sighed, exhaling a cloud of crystalline fog, and tried to tell himself that he had expected this all along, and that he had only brought it upon himself. He deserved no better (far worse, truth be told), and so why should he feel disappointment – hurt, even – at receiving what he deserved?

Then his instincts, long tensed and capable of watching his back from his foes at large, twitched, and he heard an uneven step behind him, accompanied by the tap of a walking-stick. Tobi peeked around his legs, and let off a short bark that echoed like a shot on the platform.

He turned around, slowly, afraid to even hope or look up.

"It…it _is_ true, then," a familiar voice – so familiar! – whispered from in front of him, filled with disbelief, incredulity…but he was _there_ after all.

He finally mustered the nerve to look up, intending to apologize, but somehow couldn't quite make the words come just at that moment.

He had told himself quite firmly that he would not, would _not_ give an inappropriately emotional public display in such a setting. Would _not_.

However, he had made no provision for _returning_ such a display if Watson started it first. Which was a good thing for both of them, he rather thought in the haze that became the next few moments.

Tobi seemed to agree, for he only sniffed the doctor's shoes and yawned, refraining from nipping at either of them in search of attention, for some minutes.

* * *

No, that would not do either; Watson, however forgiving he was, deserved more than just a letter saying "Oh, by the way, dear chap, I am not truly dead. Meet me for luncheon tomorrow, do?" or some such.

In addition, there was no guarantee that Watson would not absolutely hate him for a long while, might even throw him out of wherever they met or land a good solid blow to the jaw for his awful deception; he deserved no less, he was aware of that. And while the man was intensely forgiving – dangerously so – every man has a breaking point, and he was not eager to discover if he were the cause of Watson's.

What on earth would he do if the man did not forgive him?

He quashed that thought with due unease. At least, regardless of anything else, Watson deserved to be told the truth for the first time in person, and in a private setting. The problem would be to be permitted into such a private setting, and in order to arrange that he would have to know exactly what the doctor's routine was like at the present time.

He could not do that until he returned to London.

And he could not return to London until Moran had been dealt with, or at least until he knew he was close to finally taking down the tiger for good.

_Soon, Watson_, he thought fondly, and glanced through his villa's windows at the bustle of Montpelier – so chaotic, and yet so different than London. How he missed it and all it held, even if returning meant the possibility of rejection.

By his feet, Tobi snorted, twitched a few times, then rolled over, obviously asleep and dreaming about heaven only knew what.

He returned to his own dreams; for, daydreams though they were, they were still dreams. And if Watson's ridiculous propensity for romantic fiction were accurate…dreams did, sometimes, come true.

He held to that hope for the next five months.


	21. A Danger Shared

**Title**: A Danger Shared  
**Rating**: K+  
**Warnings**: the usual spoilers for FINA and EMPT  
**Word Count:** 3100ish  
**Summary: **The third of four Help Haiti charity fics, this one for **illumynare** . I am so so so sooooooooooooooo~ sorry for the delay in this one. My Holmes muse took itself off on holiday evidently, several months ago, and I've not gotten it back yet. I absolutely hate it when I have a writer's block as bad as this has been for the last few months, but I can only plead that for the delay. I do apologize. :( *is ashamed* Also, I didn't want to just slop the usual post-Reichenbach angst down like most of us have at some point, so that's another reason it took forEVER. I hate myself sometimes...*swats crabby muse with Persian slipper*

**Prompt was:** _Shortly after EMPT, Watson is injured protecting Holmes. In the aftermath, they work through some of their issues over Holme's disappearance and return. _

* * *

"That was, _without question_, the single most imbecilic action I can ever recall you taking in our entire association."

The words emerge harshly into the stillness of the room, hanging enticingly in the air for a moment before dropping to the floor with an almost audible thud, their efficacy killed by a refusal to rise to the bait in defense.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, London's currently most sought-after news item, has shot off the bed and now paces a furious ellipse into the worn floorboards. To the window, glance unseeing out at the plane tree in the back garden, back to the door that leads to the hall, half-turn and over to the wardrobe, another half turn before he hits the bed, and back to the window again. Three times of this asymmetrical revolution, before he whirls suddenly and bursts out with the previous words.

The listener, sitting up against the headboard, winces at their vehemence and volume, indicating his bandaged head with a grimace.

Completely unapologetic, the detective spins fully around and sends a glare toward the bed. "I have absolutely no sympathy, Doctor," he snaps tightly, with a fist clenched in his dressing-gown pocket. "It has been many years since I saw you do something so utterly foolish."

"That might possibly be because you have not _been_ _here_ for the last three of them," comes the retort, stinging with bitterness.

Holmes pauses only for a fraction as the barb enters a chink in the armor, but relentlessly moves forward again after only a moment's hesitation. "We are not discussing my what may or may not be mistakes or regrets, Watson," he reproves severely. "We are discussing your ridiculously imprudent actions of tonight."

It is the wrong approach, indeed a childish one, and were he not so horrifically terrified at what might have been, he might realise it. As it stands, he does not much care, and it is with some satisfaction that he sees Watson's face flush a retaliatory crimson.

He cuts off the rising protest with a slash of a thin hand, noting detachedly that it is not quite steady as he would have liked. "Watson, how many times in those early years did I instruct you to never go into those parts of the city unarmed?"

"You were not on a case, I had my stick, and I was in your company," is the sharp retort. "Under most circumstances, if I remember correctly – which I may not, I grant you, so long has it been – that was always sufficient. And may I point out that you were not much more effective against them than I? If anything, it would seem that you have slightly lost your touch."

There is no malice in the tone, only cool, clinical observation – and that in itself annoys him more than if Watson had met fire with fire and blown the entire matter through the rafters.

"You cannot blame me for what occurred, Doctor," he retorts, accompanied by a frown darker than evening sky peeping around the edges of the blind. "Even children in this city are taught that it is far safer to submit to an armed robber than to attempt to overpower him – to do so is absolute foolishness, and even I would not attempt it!"

"I noticed," comes the weary reply. "I suppose those same children are also taught that it is far preferable to allow said robber to do considerable physical harm to one's walking companion rather than attempt to stop him?"

"When it could mean your life, and definitely mean your safety, then _yes_, Watson!" he finally expostulates with venom, the dam that he had taken refuge behind cracking at last, spilling forth the worry he has been denying for the last two hours. He is receiving a sadly cynical look now, and knows he must continue or else make matters worse than they both already have. "I should far prefer to take the risk myself than involve you, my dear fellow," he adds after a painful hesitation, though the words seem to hang stickily in the tense atmosphere, not quite making it through the slough to their intended target.

Apparently, sincere though the statement had been, it was the wrong thing to say, for the Doctor's eyes soften with a remembered pain.

"You have a quite selfish habit of acting on your wishes in that area, Holmes," Watson speaks, and the tone is gentle enough; but Holmes can easily perceive his jaw clenching. "And while I appreciate your regard for my safety," he adds when the detective would have interrupted, and softens his voice while continuing, "have you ever given any thought at all to my wishes in the matter?"

He blinks in mild stupefaction, for to be entirely honest with both of them…he has not, not once.

"No," he admits with only minimal hesitation, for there is no way to whitewash the facts.

Watson's surprise at the easy victory shows upon his lined, weary face.

There is too much space between them, and so he moves the chair from the old writing desk over beside the bed and its occupant. Straddling it with his arms folded over the back, he looks expectantly at the doctor. "We need to talk."

"Indeed," Watson returns dryly, while rubbing absently at his aching head. "Without the juvenility of arguing motives and the events of tonight. I daresay that is not truly the issue at hand."

"Quite. Are you…in much pain?" he inquires with understandable hesitancy, for he does not wish it to be taken as either pity or recrimination – or even guilt from what he has said previously; it is none of these, only naked concern.

But Watson indicates a negative – gingerly – and only sighs, turning slowly onto his side to better see him without moving his head and neck. "I have had far worse, Holmes," is the half-amused reassurance. "You are quite overreacting to the entire affair, you know."

He has the grace to blush, and the intelligence to change the subject, though not the tact to do so with subtlety. Watson is actually grinning at his discomfiture, blast the man.

"You were informing me that we must talk," he redirects the conversation with haste, squirming slightly on the barely-padded chair.

The gleam in his friend's eyes fades slightly, as his gaze drops to the worn coverlet, the quilted one that Mrs. Hudson had sewn to cover the soft down comforters she had made both of them their second Christmas in Baker Street. "Holmes, this predilection of yours toward 'keeping me out of the line of fire' is incredibly selfish of you," the doctor finally informs him with unaccustomed firmness. "It _has_ to stop, dear chap."

He bristles instinctively, as any man would when confronted with a demon he does not know lurks within himself; and how could wishing to keep his closest – only – friend safe possibly be selfish or self-centred?

"You do not understand," he mutters, though he is not certain he could define his motives even to himself.

"No, I doubt that I do," Watson retorts with some heat. "You never will be able to convince me that you could not have found a way – some way, _any_ way – to contact me, however indirectly, in the space of three years."

"How would you have had me do that?" he demands with equal feeling. "You are as aware as I that London was still crawling with the remnants of Moriarty's syndicate; any attempt to contact you, however well-hidden, would have been an unnecessary risk!"

"That is just it, Holmes – you have no right to decide what is unnecessary!" Watson sighs, then deflates back into the pillows as he had sat up to make his point. "Not for me, Holmes. You do not have the _right_."

"Watson…" This is harder than he had anticipated, and now more than ever he wishes they had hashed this entire affair out upon his return, rather than allowing it to fester for over a fortnight. "What about your family, Watson?" he asks at last, lowering his voice gently. "Forgive me for bringing up painful memories, my dear fellow, but I had been informed you were quite happily married with a child on the way; how could I in any sort of good faith risk innocent lives as you seem to insist I should have done?" He shakes his head, a definite and unyielding gesture. "No, Watson. I have been called unfeeling in my life, but never would I be so utterly heartless or so uncaring of you and yours."

The pain that sweeps in a tidal wave over the doctor's weary features disappears into a grimace of realization. "I – I had not thought of that," comes the whisper then, falling softly in the silence of the room.

"You alone, I might have been seriously tempted to contact, to permit you to share the risk with me; and Watson, had you been unmarried at the time of my disappearance I most likely would have simply kept you with me. But I could not. Surely you see this?"

Watson nods, rubs absently at the bandage that encircles his right knuckles, no doubt in an effort to effectively avert his gaze. "I am grateful for your consideration of – of Mary," comes the low answer at last. "But, Holmes," he continues, glancing upward, "she passed on over three months ago. Why could you not tell me then?"

He leans forward in his intensity, arms over the chair-back, for this must be not simply listened to but _heard_ in order to be believed. "Watson, I was not informed of it until a few weeks ago, I swear that much to you," he intones solemnly. "And as soon as I discovered what had happened, I began putting my plans into place to return – Moran or no Moran, I would not willingly remain away having heard of your bereavement. You must believe me, Watson."

A sudden spark lights in the warming eyes. "You…you did say, when you returned, that you were already on your way when news of Adair's murder reached you," the doctor realizes aloud.

He smiles at long last, for now they are 'having it out,' so to speak, but in a mutually discovering fashion rather than in heated words and arguments. "I was, Watson. It was sheer good fortune that Moran acted when he did; it permitted me to return and dispose of him rather than being forced to continue in hiding until he made his next move. You see, Doctor, I am not as heartless as you suppose. I will grant you that I have been somewhat…high-handed, in my treatment of your safety." Watson snorts, but he ignores it and continues with resolution. "Can you blame me for that?"

A long silence, broken only by the sound of a passing cab in the street below, now almost completely darkened save for the thin glow of gas-lamp.

Then, "Of course I cannot," Watson replies, offering him a small, sad smile. "But the fact remains that you do not have the right. I should much prefer to be in your confidence, Holmes, than left out of it for my own protection. It is not the fair thing to do, my dear fellow."

"But it is, occasionally, the best thing to do, Watson." His protests are logical, though the doctor appears unshaken by them.

Watson is silent, and he has the impression that the man is weighing his words carefully; wary, no doubt, of hurting him by his recriminations, justified though they may be. Finally Watson looks up, pierces him directly with that intense gaze that he found himself unable to resist and inexplicably allured to, from the moment a foppish youth introduced them in the chemical laboratory at St. Bart's hospital. He could not seem to tear himself away from their spell then, and he is equally useless now.

"The best thing to do for _whom_, Holmes?" the doctor asks him, and the appalling directness of the question momentarily leaves him thought-stricken. "For you, I grant you I can see that. You would feel perfectly content in the knowledge that you had accomplished your intent. But do you suppose for an instant that it is the best thing for those you leave behind? Or worse yet, those to whom the consequences for your deceptions are an almost unbearable burden of guilt?"

Indeed, he had never quite thought of it in this way before; but now the connections all leap into place like a perfectly-forged chain being pulled taut before him, and he can see everything that Watson has not said.

"You were completely pleased in the knowledge that you were keeping me safe at the Falls, Holmes," Watson is speaking, calmly but with great hidden emotion, "by permitting me to be led away by that forged note from the hotel. But did you ever stop to consider what that would do to me, forced to live for the rest of my life with the knowledge that I had been too stupid – too blind! – to see through the hoax? That I had abandoned you to face your mortal enemy all alone?"

"Watson –"

"I knew we were in danger, Holmes!" The pain evident in every inflection is enough to turn his stomach, for he had no idea…but Watson continues, more rapidly, as if trying to get all this out before he regrets it. "I knew it – I even saw a man traveling along that same path after I left! – and yet I was too foolish to suspect a trap. And that knowledge haunted me for longer than you can know," the doctor whispers, his eyes now glued to a loose thread in the coverlet rather than on the detective's face.

He winces at the raw agony of guilt that permeates the words, and surreptitiously moves his chair closer to the bed. Watson is in pain from his injuries, however minor they had been (thank heaven); he can see this, but the physical evidences of the evening's activities is far eclipsed by this festering mass of wounded heart, obviously having lain gaping and raw for the last three years.

And it is his doing. However noble he had assured himself that his motives were, he was responsible for this.

"Doctor, I…did not consider that in my plans," he finally admits after Watson yanks the loose thread free with a snap, then stares at it as if he did not mean to dislodge it.

"No, I doubt that you did," is the cool reply, and Watson still will not meet his eyes. "I do not suppose you took into consideration either, the fact that I spent a week trying to locate your body so that I at least could go back to London and tell your brother that we had remains to bury. Or the fact that the Moriarty gang trials dragged onward for months, and eventually got so ugly that the police placed a twenty-four hour guard upon me for three months afterwards, for fear that I would be attacked simply out of association?"

He raises a hand, quite aware that it is shaking visibly. "Please, Watson," he manages, keeping his voice clear and without tremor with a Herculean effort. "I do not know what else I can do but to apologize for not considering your…feelings, in the matter."

Watson sighs, and seems to melt back into the pillows with a small wince. "I do not need your apologies, Holmes," he responds, and the tone is faint with weariness.

"What then?" he finds himself asking, nearly pleading. "Tell me what I can do, my dear fellow."

The hazel eyes, somewhat muddled from the laudanum he had been practically force-fed by the attending police doctor (the argument and colourful language had been a source of high amusement for their redoubtable landlady), brighten as he leans closer. "Two things," Watson answers, cocking an inquiring eyebrow up at him.

"Name them," he murmurs fervently, for at this moment he feels low enough that no task could possibly be degrading after his enormous miscalculations of the past.

"One," the doctor coughs, shifts restlessly on the pillows before resuming, "promise me that you will not again refuse to take me into your confidence over something so vital as your life – or your safety. I mean it, Holmes," he adds when the detective would have defended his past actions. "I have no family now, and I am perfectly capable of standing up against enemies as well as you. The next time you decide to take down a Culverton Smith or another Moriarty, you will _not_ leave me out of it for my safety's sake. If this is to truly be a partnership now as you have hinted at this week, then I must be a partner to the danger as well. Agreed?"

He fidgets in the chair, swiveling his legs to the side and drumming his fingers upon the coverlet in muffled thumps, but finally gives a curt nod. This he can do, and while he may not like the idea of dragging this extraordinary man into peril at every turn he knows denying the request will do far more harm than good. "Agreed, Watson."

The doctor gives a sleepy sigh of relief, and he feels with a instinctive rush of warmth that all is forgiven – not forgotten, but at least forgiven (and that is more than sufficient).

"What is the second thing?" he prompts, knowing that very shortly his friend will be asleep.

The well-remembered eyes twinkle affectionately up at him. "Find a buyer for my medical practice, there's a good fellow?"


	22. The Bullpup

**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 400  
**Summary**: LiveJournal drabble prompt by **strainconductor**:_ Holmes is caught being nice to Watson's dog_  
**A/N**: I'm very sorry these are taking so long; my Holmes muse is nonexistent at the moment. :(

* * *

Her two new lodgers are on the amusing side of odd, but she could have landed worse gentlemen as tenants. She quite likes the young Dr. Watson, and after watching her beloved terrier age this past winter it is some comfort to see a wrinkly little bulldog-puppy trotting blithely after the invalided doctor whenever he is well enough to stroll about – though she suspects the poor chap may have to go, for he appears to hate Mr. Holmes (and, incidentally, the man's Persian slippers) with every fibre of his doggy soul.

She is therefore quite surprised when, one morning as she is bringing up pre-breakfast coffee, she hears voices through the sitting-room door; the doctor is not awake, and yet Mr. Holmes is speaking.

"There really is no reason for your atrocious behaviour, you know."

A smallish growl passes through the door, and she listens amusedly.

"Do not look at me like that; it is hardly my fault you have been spoilt to the core by that soft-hearted physician upstairs. I warn you, I have no compunction about taking the _Times_ to you should you try anything of the kind again."

She refrains from laughing as another growl filters through the pause in Mr. Holmes's quite serious, slightly one-sided, conversation. A rustling noise, and then a short, sharp yip of what sounds like eagerness.

"No, you may _not_ have this unless you refrain from gnawing on my slippers, is that clear? You have already quite ruined the left one, and I must have the right for my tobacco. My belongings are not chew-toys."

There is a sharp yip, and a scuffling followed by an obviously human squawk. "Get _off_, you disgusting little – oh very _well_, then, take the blasted bone, and I do hope you choke on it too," is grumbled with far less animosity than she has come to expect from the stranger of her two lodgers. "Yes, yes, you are welcome, now desist that infernal slobbering."

She smiles, and enters with the coffee tray; and if she is surprised to see the puppy curled up on the chemical table, gnawing on an enormous meaty bone from the butcher's down the street, she does not say so.

She _does_ tell the Doctor, and greatly enjoys the teasing that results between the two gentlemen who she is beginning to feel have always lived – or at least belonged – in this house.


	23. Count the Cost

**Title**: Count the Cost  
**Rating**: K+  
**Word Count**: 700 (seven drabbles in sequence)  
**Warnings**: Mentions of drug use  
**Summary: **My entry for _challenge 012: amnesia fic _over at **watsons_woes** . I took liberties with the canon here; both cocaine and morphine are mentioned in SIGN, but we never see the morphine after that so I'm playing a bit with an idea of why Holmes quit using it. Also, the opening quote is from SPEC, and the title comes from Watson's argument against the drug at the beginning of SIGN.  
**A/N:** Um...yeah. *hides* So I haven't written anything more than a drabble for Holmes fic since...January 6th? I just can't seem to find my Holmes muse anywhere; if you see it send it packing back to me, will you? :(

* * *

_When a doctor goes wrong, he is the worst of criminals._

His words, voiced against the villain in one of the watershed cases of his career, and they ring in his ears now with all the steady pallor of a church funeral-bell, as the third day passes with no word, no clues, no trail to follow.

Planting a medical man as an orderly in the suspect hospital was far preferable than his assuming a disguise and attempting to pass as one.

Watson's idea, and he had agreed that it was the best.

That does not assuage his guilt at all.

* * *

Watson is no fool, he knows that quite well, nor is he even a tenth as dim as he writes himself in the _Strand_. The man is shrewd, intelligent, eminently capable of caring for himself – he'd have been driven mad long ago were the doctor not worthy in every respect.

In the medical world Watson is as much at home as he is in the criminal, and this had been a simple enough matter, to discover which of the physicians in the East End hospital is responsible for the recent influx of narcotics smuggling.

And yet, something has gone wrong.

* * *

They had, to his rueful amusement, jested about the affair, Watson delivering gently pointed remarks regarding his habit (and his being an expert on the subject), and he had only been able to hastily misdirect the conversation.

He remembers that now with fondness, and comes close to vowing entire future abstinence from the infernal stuff if it will only sharpen his faculties enough to discover a clue – _any_ clue – that will lead him to the physician in question.

Watson disappeared from the hospital three days ago, and even two nights spent sleeplessly roaming the city have given him no data.

* * *

One of his underworld contacts (bribed handsomely with half his last case's fee) finally proves his worth, but two more days limp past before he is able to bait and spring the trap.

Mrs. Hudson is pleased that he finally breaks his fast, Lestrade is ecstatic about successfully apprehending the suspect physician, and Mycroft is relieved that the drug trafficking coming from that particular hellspot has been effectively halted.

He himself is horrified to discover that Watson, drugged senseless with morphine, can give him no further information than that he has been steadily dosed with it for five days.

* * *

Watson remembers nothing – and by that, it is _nothing_ in the literal sense. A heavy blow to the head coupled with a near-overdose of narcotics have denigrated the gentleman he knows into a helpless addict.

He has tolerated, but never heeded, the physician's stern warnings over the last few months about his habit, not truly seeing the harm in escaping the world for a few hours at a stretch.

But now, as he reintroduces himself and basic details every hour to a stranger whose brilliant memory and kind geniality seem to have melted under the influence...

Then the withdrawal hits.

* * *

He has known mild withdrawals himself when weather conditions forbade his bi-weekly ventures to the druggist's, but never has he seen what a true withdrawal will do to a man.

_This_ man.

Watson is without question the strongest man he knows. He can barely realize the level of pain the doctor feels with every falling barometer, can scarcely comprehend the spectres that haunt the upstairs bedroom during the hottest August nights.

Absolutely cannot fathom this man being reduced to _whimpering_, due entirely to dependency on a syringe.

He knows it is not the lack of sleep which turns his stomach.

* * *

He is forced immediately to rid the house of morphine, despite the storming protests and alternating pleas. The syringes and bottles are smashed in the fire, their contents poured down the drains, and the doctor's cheque-book returns to his drawer to prevent purchase of replacements.

After two hellish weeks, the worst passes and sanity returns. The doctor recovers and remembers; a little pale, more than a little humiliated, but Holmes is far too happy to care about anything other than having his Watson back, safe and sane.

Watson eventually replenishes his medicinal stores of the drug.

Holmes never replaces his.


	24. Impeccable Taste

**Title**: Impeccable Taste  
**Fandom**: Sherlock Holmes (bookverse)  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
**Rating**: G (K)  
**Word Count**: 55  
**Summary**: Only the best for Sherlock Holmes...  
**A/N:** So... *is highly embarrassed*...this is my first Holmes fic in over a year. Go me, 55 words yes. :[ My entry for Challenge 001 over at the genfic LiveJournal community **great_tales**.

* * *

My friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a man of eclectic and exclusive tastes. While _l'art pour l'art_ remained his _Credo_, his ancestral appetite for opulence manifested in first-class carriages, affluent dining, and imported cigars.

"Demanding only London's finest should not surprise you, Watson," was his sole remark. "After all, I had impeccable taste in flat-mates."


	25. Minutae

**Title**: _Minutae_  
**Characters**: Holmes, Watson  
'**Verse**: Doyle, Granada (basically no Watson marriage)  
**Rating**: K+ for (canon) character death  
**Word Count**: 1300 plus footnotes (13 drabbles)  
**Warnings**: Spoilers for both Granada and Doyle FINA and EMPT, basic canon spoilers  
**Summary**: It's the little things that make or break a relationship. Prompt was: _ I would love a fic by kcscribbler that shows all the subtle little things Holmes does for Watson- not going out when it's the kind of weather that would pain him, moving his chair closer to the fire, playing violin on bad days... anything like that, if possible?_  
**A/N**: Written as prize fic for **donutsweeper**, grand prize winner at the JWP prompts for **watsons_woes**. And it's my first real Holmes fic since...well, before the 2009 movie came out? o_O Only drabbles, but 'tis better than nothing, y/y? :|

* * *

It is a matter of power. This strange and unique and thoroughly incomprehensible army surgeon which Fate and one Henry Stamford have so neatly deposited upon his doorstep, is a variable tossed into the experiment which is his life, one so volatile and impulsive that it completely upends all predicted outcomes. He is thrown off his guard, simultaneously charmed and intrigued, by a dry wit, tolerance, and unbelievable loyalty, none of which are variables he has ever used.

His brain thrives on enigmas, intricate problems, mysteries with hidden depths.

John Watson is the most fascinating one he has yet encountered.

-00-

It is a matter of pride. The man is a war hero, and has seen horrors which make East End serial killings look like penny thrillers. Nightmare-haunted and half-crippled, the doctor could easily fade into the background, unnoticed and unmissed, but for his chance encounter with London's keenest observer. Holmes knows instinctively, without the evidence of observation-deduction, that while help and sympathy might be tolerated by this ex-soldier, pity and coddling will not be – and more surprising than that, is that any of the above ideas have even occurred to his admittedly self-centric mind.

John Watson has already changed him.

-00-

It is a matter of protection. He sees the indications moments before it starts, and is already flying across the warehouse to shield from curious eyes. The case has been exhausting, and their quarry is himself a veteran, hopelessly addicted to opiates…Holmes should have anticipated this.

Only the clatter of the sergeant dissembling a rifle; but a trigger. He steadfastly ignores all else, taking two frozen hands in his – not the arm or shoulder, never that – and tries to penetrate the memory-fog he can see the doctor desperately struggling against.

John Watson is the bravest man he knows, _twice_ over.

-00-

It is a matter of common sense. "Do try to not drive this one into Bedlam, Sherlock," had been Mycroft's sole piece of wisdom, and the advice is sound. From curbing his enthusiasm regarding grisly details, to not leaving newspapers where a limping man's walking-stick will slide dangerously on them, he is willing to attempt keeping the doctor in good spirits.

After all, who else would react to a (dead) poisonous frog in the sugar-bowl at breakfast with only a blink and a dry, "Shall I check under the butter-dish for the scorpions, then?"

John Watson is an ideal flatmate.

-00-

It is a matter of respect. Courtesy is engrained in the British mind, and yet it differs crucially from the quality of respect. Courtesy is extended; respect is awarded. While the doctor's nerves are self-admittedly in tatters, he is quite game for anything Holmes has yet thrown at him. And when, one rainy evening, they are accosted in poorer London by four roughs suspecting an easy target, Holmes is dumbfounded to discover that this rail-thin army surgeon is a smallish _demon_ with a Penang-lawyer.

John Watson has a hand up from the pavement, and his respect from that night onward.

-00-

It is a matter of concern. Winter has turned into waterlogged spring, and he charts the weather patterns by the amount of pain the doctor is in. A white-knuckled grip on the morning paper is typical. But the doctor is a proud man, and Holmes will never offer pity or platitudes.

Instead, he tolerates the odd looks from Scotland Yarders when he orders a cab to the crime scene. It is only half a block away, only ten minutes – but on sleet-covered pavements.

John Watson settles beside him with a sigh of gratitude, and Holmes smiles out at the drizzle.

-00-

It is a matter of selfishness. A doctor is frankly invaluable to Holmes's work; he has nerve, he has knowledge, and this particular one has nearly unending patience. The doctor's conversation is fascinating and well-read, his company unobtrusive yet reassuring, and (perhaps most valuable) apparently the whole of Scotland Yard _adores_ him, if only by Holmes-comparison.

So if, listening, he hears the hesitation every second of the seventeen stairs on this miserably cold night, and scoots Watson's chair that much closer to the comforting hearth-glow, it is only self-preservation.

John Watson is a perfectly miserable patient; that is all.

-00-

It is a matter of science. Scarcely a year since they embarked upon The Great Flat-Sharing Adventure (the Yard's betting pool increases monthly), not nearly enough time to develop a relationship which justifies this idiotic lack of self-preservation. Holmes has never before had a man risk his life for him. The knife might have taken his ear off. Duly warned, he dodged in time to see it strike a secondary target.

He has never before had a man bleeding in his arms for him, either.

John Watson is magnetic; no nurse is going to eject him from this room tonight.

-00-

It is a matter of penance. He has been informed, frequently now that he has a colleague who will call him out on it, that he distinctly lacks tact toward a slower intellect: which is ninety-nine percent of the population. He tends to speak Accuracy without thinking of consequences, and this has never bothered him…until now, with an unthinking comment about war being a "ridiculously melodramatic" way of settling disputes.

He curses his insensitivity too late. Apologies are not his forte, but he is duty-bound to attempt.

John Watson is a far too forgiving man, but Holmes is not complaining.

-00-

It is a matter of conspiracy. While he has in times past been the recipient of stalker behavior, each instance has been short-lived due to prompt police and medical action against the deranged party.

"It is your own fault for strewing bits of your sandwich about," Watson observes mildly, as he tries to lose his pursuers 'round the nearest bush-clump. He yelps as one draws too close, much to the doctor's glee. "I could inquire at the Yard regarding restraining orders for ducks?"

John Watson has a devilishly pawky sense of humor, and Holmes is equal parts charmed and terrified.

* * *

It is a trifling matter, which finally breaks the dam of self-control he has kept over himself. All through the tragedy, the train back to London, the flock of impersonal reporters at the station, Lestrade's stammered sympathy and Mrs. Hudson's weeping – he had not broken under the pressure.

Until now.

He finds a modest box of cigars marked Bradley's, still sitting on a desk which would never again be used.

_Watson –_

_Welcome back, my dear fellow. If am not present, will return before tea._

_SH _(1)

John Watson slides down the wall, note in hand, and the tears finally come.

* * *

It is a matter of belonging. He has always been one ill-fitting piece in life's jigsaw puzzle, discarded after refusal to snap into place. It is not until he wanders from Tibet through the depths of China, that he discovers a cheap pendant hanging in a shop-window.

He was in the wrong puzzle all along.

Yin and Yang. Complimentary opposites, each unable to exist without the presence of the other. His life is not a jigsaw; it is a simple two-piece puzzle.

John Watson discovers a wooden pendant amongst his relics six months later, and does not need to ask.

-00-

It is a matter of choice. He can only blame himself for three years' deception; he saw that the cross-hairs of Moran's air-rifle were aimed at the ex-soldier standing shell-shocked on the path below. His silence bought life, and the cost was worth paying.

But now, after catching Watson as he crumples, insensible, he cannot be faulted for cradling the man for longer than is strictly necessary. The doctor will be hurt by learning Mycroft's role, but his actions speak for themselves. He could only choose one as confidant…only one to keep safe. At _any_ cost.

He chose John Watson.

* * *

(1) _"My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet. I went out about mid-day to transact some business in Oxford Street..." _- FINA

_"When I see the stub of a cigarette marked Bradley, Oxford Street, I know that my friend Watson is in the neighbourhood."_ - HOUN

In Granadaverse, Watson was on holiday when the Moriarty case exploded so violently.


End file.
